Every part of Uttar Pradesh (UP) is brimming with its own culture and cuisine. Pick any place in the state - Varanasi, Lucknow, or Agra - and you’d find that each has something special to offer, particularly in terms of food. One thing that is common across these cities is their love for street food. Deep-fried pooris, kachoris, and samosas enjoy a fanfare like no other.
Belonging to the same category of crispy, fried treats comes Agra’s famous bedai. For the unversed, bedai is a cross between a poori and a kachori. The puffed round-shaped bread is often stuffed with urad dal and deep-fried until it turns golden-brown. This makes for delicious street food as well as a breakfast item in Agra. However, bedai is not alone in this race.
To accompany it, one would often find a spicy potato sabzi served alongside. The boiled, peeled and diced potatoes are tossed in a host of spices, lending it the hot and fiery flavour. Sometimes, kaddu ki sabzi or pumpkin is also prepared and served with the bedai instead of potatoes. Wait, the breakfast combination doesn’t end here either.
Since the sabzi is usually fiery, there is another element to this breakfast pairing. It is no other than jalebi. Crispy, deep-fried loops made with maida are dipped in sugar syrup and served piping hot from the kadhai. A popular Indian dessert, the origins of jalebi trace it back to Persia. Despite foreign roots, jalebi is a loved sweet meat in the country. This sweet helps to balance out the hot and spicy flavours of the sabzi along with the bedai.
Interestingly, this bedai is also commonly found in Delhi these days and is referred to as bedmi poori. However, the quintessential breakfast combination of Agra is best savoured in the city itself. Since this breakfast pairing has become a popular treat, people also add oodles of curd to the sabzi to tone down the spice. This is because the idea of having bedai with aloo sabzi and jalebis is originally from Agra and limited to that city only.
Apart from bedais, UP is also famous for its khasta kachoris. These flaky street fares are deep-fried too and filled with a variety of lentils and vegetables. Then there are other kinds of pooris that are prepared for breakfast in these households and enjoyed to the core.