If you’ve ever stopped for a quick and savoury roadside snack at any city in Uttar Pradesh, chances are you’ve come across Dal Fara. Also known as simply Fara, it’s a beloved traditional snack from Uttar Pradesh and combines simplicity and nutrition.
Rice flour or wheat flour is typically used to make the dough, providing a soft and pliable texture, while chana dal is the main ingredient for the filling, which is soaked and ground into a coarse paste. Common spices include cumin seeds, coriander powder, turmeric powder, red chilli powder, and garam masala.
An Agra-based influencer recently posted a video of Dal Fara from a local vendor and asked followers to name the snack. While most foodies immediately recognised the dish, some called this ‘desi dumplings’, sparking off a debate on what these snacks are actually called.
Calling them desi dumplings is not entirely wrong since their edges are intertwined like Asian dumplings and before they’re fried they look like doughy versions of popular dumplings. They’re slightly elongated and are cut into smaller pieces before they’re fried and served.
Several other local foodies from UP pointed out that this snack is widely known as ‘bhakosa’ across many cities of UP. Followers pointed out that it’s known as bhakosa in Patna, Prayagraj and Lucknow, whereas in Mirzapur, Kanpur and Agra this snack is popular as Bhakosa. In fact, this snack has even more local names as foodies pointed out. In Agra, this snack is also called Dal ke gunje, and they’re often referred to as ‘pitha’ in certain parts of Patna.