Masyaura (Nepali Fermented Vegetable Balls)
Masyaura are Nepali fermented sun-dried vegetable balls made with a combination of minced vegetables and black lentils. The choice of vegetables is mostly taro, yam, and colocasia leaf. As finding fresh vegetables year-round was hard in the earlier days, masyaura become an alternative nutritious food item when fresh vegetables weren’t available. It also can be compared with soy-chunks, though soy-chunks are made from soybeans and masyaura is made with minced vegetables.[1]
- Prep
- 7 min
- Cook
- 1 hr 7 min
- Total
- 1 hr 14 min
- Servings
- As written in source
- Difficulty
- Medium
Timings are approximate — worked out from the method, not measured in a test kitchen.
Ingredients
Quantities are retained as written by the source and do not scale automatically. Tap an ingredient to check it off as you go.
Cooking instructions
Procedure
Place the lentil flour in a mixing bowl, and add enough water to make a thick paste.
Procedure
Mix in the vegetables.
Procedure
Cover the bowl and leave it overnight. This allows the paste to absorb the moisture completely and go through slight fermentation, which gives a nice flavor to the product.
Procedure
In the morning, make small balls or nuggets by using your hand, and place them on a tray. Wet your hand often with water, which helps prevent the paste from sticking to your hand. The balls should not touch each other.
Procedure
Place the tray in the direct sun to allow them to dry. It will take around three days to completely sun-dy, and it might take even longer on less sunny or cloudy days. Keep it indoors during the night to speed up the drying process.
Procedure
Once they are completely dried, keep them in an airtight container store for several months.
Notes, tips, and variations
You can also use whole black lentils instead of lentil flour. In this case, soak them in the water for several hours, remove the outer layer, drain water, and then grind them to a thick paste.
Notes, tips, and variations
In Nepali culture, cooked masyaura is Served with cooked rice.
Photo: AlexanderVanLoon · CC BY-SA 3.0 · https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0 · Photo source and licence
Wikibooks contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0 · https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ · Adapted; quantities retained as written. · Original source
Read it through first
Skim all 8 steps before you start — it is the difference between cooking and firefighting.
Scale it
Use the quantities listed in the original recipe. Adjust them manually if making a different batch size.
Storage
Cool completely, then keep in an airtight container in the fridge for up to three days.
Reheating
Reheat gently with a splash of water in a covered pan, rather than blasting it, so nothing dries out.
Nutrition information is not available for this recipe yet.
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