Borboti Bata: 2 Simple Recipes with Pictures

Hello everyone,

We Bangals always boast of the variety of our cuisine. There are a real lot of iconic dishes that are instantly recognized as Bangal classics. One such dish or rather family of dishes is “Bata” or pan sautéed paste of vegetables or leafy greens accompanied with some optional seafood. Today’s dish belongs to that family.
I don’t know if I can overstate just how much I hate Borboti or Long Beans, until you drop a spoonful of borboti bata on my plate and serve with hot steam rice. Yes, borboti bata, totally in an un-beanly way and I love the dish to the core. The recipes don’t call for a long list of ingredients or take forever to prepare; they are easy, incredibly satisfying and utterly delicious.

RECIPE 1: This is my mother in law’s recipe.

Ingredients:

Yardlong beans, washed and chopped.
Sliced Onion
Chopped Garlic
Green Chili
Dried Red Chilies
Salt

Method:

Steam the washed and chopped long yard beans until soft, drain the water and grind them to a smooth paste. I generally prefer grinding them on the shil-noda, you can do it in the mixer as well. But shil noda gives a creamier, smoother texture.

Now heat mustard oil in pan and splutter dried red chilies until they turn dark. Take them out. Grind them.

Add the chopped onions, garlic and green chilies. Fry till they become soft. Take out and grind them as well.

Now take everything together in a bowl. Add salt and mix and mash them up well.

Your Borboti Bata is ready.

RECIPE 2: This is the way my Maa used to make it.

Ingredients:

Long yard beans, washed and chopped.
Kalonji/onion seeds
Sliced Onion (optional)
Chopped Garlic
Green Chili
Salt
Sugar
Turmeric

Method:

Heat oil in a pan. Add Kalonji, let it splutter. Now add chopped garlic and green chilies. If you are incorporating onions, add here. Stir and fry.

Add the chopped long yard beans. Add a pinch of turmeric, salt and sugar as per your taste and cook till the beans soften.

Turn off the flame and let it cool down.

Shift the beans to the food processor jar and grind them to a smooth paste.

Borboti bata is ready. Serve with steam rice.

The two recipes taste subtly different from each other. The first one make a more consistent paste as the beans are steamed and them mixed together with the rest of the ingredients. When you eat it you taste all the flavors bursting at once. With the second recipe however, the texture is different, the kalonji/onion seeds bring out a more distinct and punchy flavor that lingers longer in your mouth. Take your pick.

Those who know me know that prefer rice with almost everything. For me the rice or roti question doesn’t make sense. But my husband on the other hand is a roti fanatic. So when we had some Borboti-Bata left over from lunch, he decided to make some “borboti bata stuffed paratha” so to speak with it. Unfortunately or fortunately we do not have any pictures of his creation, but I am sure he will boast about it for the next six months at least.