Recipe
🍳 BREAKFAST
Bara
Little savory fried rings of ground urdi and flour, green with chopped tajer leaf and heavy with masala, eaten hot with chutney or sambal.
Surinamese · medium · serves 4
prep 30 min · cook 20 min
~255 cal · 7g protein · 30g carbs · 12g fat · 4g fiber · 1g sugars · 2g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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Bara is one of the great Surinamese street breakfasts, brought by Indian indentured labourers to the Dutch Caribbean and made wholly its own in Paramaribo. It is a small, savoury fried ring of ground urdi and flour, leavened, heavily spiced and flecked green with finely chopped tajer leaf. It is a close cousin of the Trinidadian bara that goes into doubles, which is built on yellow split peas instead and left plain.
The dough is built on urdi, split black gram, soaked and ground wet to a paste, worked into flour with masala, turmeric, cumin and garlic, and shot through with tajer leaf chopped as fine as it will go. It is left to rise, then each ball is flattened, pierced in the middle with a finger and dropped into hot oil to fry into a soft, chewy, deep-golden ring. The smell of them frying, cumin and hot oil, is the smell of a Surinamese morning market.
They are eaten hot, folded around a smear of blistering sambal or stacked two with a savoury filling between, washed down with strong coffee. Spiced, savoury, and satisfying, bara is exactly the kind of real cooked breakfast that a peanut-butter roll only hints at.
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Make it yours
✓ Naturally vegetarian, vegan and dairy-, egg-, nut- and pork-free. No swaps needed.
Toggle a diet and the ingredients rewrite themselves with regional substitutes.
🥕 Vegetarian
🌱 Vegan
🌾 Gluten-Free
🥛 Dairy-Free
🥜 Nut-Free
🥚 Egg-Free
🐖 Pork-Free
Dietary labels are a cooking guide, not allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish; we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, read the label on every product you use, and note that a kitchen can cross-contaminate in ways a recipe cannot control.
Ingredients
US
Metric
Serves 4
1 cup urdi (split black gram / urad dal), soaked overnight
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp ground
1 tbsp masala curry powder
1 tsp ground turmeric
2 cups tajer leaf or spinach, and chopped very fine
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 , finely chopped
1 tsp active dry yeast
1/2 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup, as needed warm water
4 cups , for deep-frying
to taste potato or mango chutney, or sambal, to serve
Instructions
1
Drain the soaked urdi and grind it wet to a thick paste with a splash of water, in a blender or food processor.
✎ Chef’s note
Urdi is split black gram, sold as oerdi split in Surinamese and Dutch shops; ground urdi flour, oerdi besan, can go straight into the dough with the water. Yellow split peas make the Trinidadian bara instead, the plain one that goes inside doubles.
2
Stir the yeast and sugar into the warm water and let it stand 5 minutes until foamy.
3
In a bowl, combine the urdi paste, flour, cumin, fenugreek, masala, turmeric, garlic, scallions, chopped tajer leaf and salt.
✎ Chef’s note
Chop the tajer leaf as finely as you possibly can. It should disappear into the dough as green flecks rather than sit in it as pieces of greens.
4
Mix in the yeast water to make a thick, soft, spoonable batter. Cover and leave in a warm spot for 1 hour, until risen and bubbly.
✎ Chef’s note
The rise is what makes bara light instead of dense. Give it a warm place and the full hour to bubble up.
5
Heat the oil in a deep pan to 350F (175C).
6
Wet your hands, take a scoop of batter, flatten it into a disc with a small hole in the middle, and slip it into the oil.
7
Fry the baras a few at a time for 2 to 3 minutes, turning, until puffed and deep golden.
8
Drain on paper towels and serve hot, with a spoonful of potato or mango chutney, or sambal.
Paramaribo market tradition.
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🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
Paramaribo. Paramaribo is a wooden colonial capital with one of the most layered kitchens anywhere, mixing Javanese, Indian, Chinese, Creole, and Maroon cooking. Pom, a baked casserole of grated pomtajer root and chicken, is its celebration dish.
🗺️
Suriname. Suriname may have the world's most diverse cuisine per capita, fusing Javanese, Indian, Creole, Chinese, and Dutch traditions. Roti, pom, and bami reflect a remarkable culinary crossroads on the South American coast.
🌍
South America. The Andes are the potato's homeland and still hold something like four thousand native varieties, selected over thousands of years for altitude, colour and texture. The high plateau also worked out how to keep them: frozen overnight in the cold, trodden to press the water out, then dried in the sun into chuno, which stores for years.
The story behind this dish is up top, worth a read while the pot works.
More from Suriname
PomA festive baked casserole of grated pomtajer root and citrus-marinated chicken, crisp on top and tangy within.
Roti met KipGriddled split-pea roti served with a curried chicken, potato, and long-bean masala, Suriname's signature plate.
Bojo CakeA dense, moist cake of cassava and coconut spiked with rum and raisins, Suriname's Creole celebration bake.
Browse all Suriname recipes →
Good to know
You’ll need: Blender, Food processor.
Storing it: Fried food is best eaten fresh while crisp. Re-crisp leftovers in a hot oven or air fryer; the microwave makes them soft.
Make it a Suriname meal
DawetDrink
Bojo CakeDessert
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Frequently asked questions
What is Bara?
Little savory fried rings of ground urdi and flour, green with chopped tajer leaf and heavy with masala, eaten hot with chutney or sambal.
Where does Bara come from?
Bara is a Surinamese dish from Paramaribo, Suriname.
Can Bara be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Bara recipe includes substitution suggestions for vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, egg-free, and pork-free versions, including several at once such as gluten-free and dairy-free together. Treat them as a starting guide rather than a guarantee, and see the allergen note below.
Is Bara safe for people with food allergies?
Our dietary labels and substitutions are a cooking guide, not medical or allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish, but we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, always read the label on every product you use, and remember a home or commercial kitchen can cross-contaminate ingredients in ways a recipe cannot control.
How long does Bara take to make?
About 50 minutes total (30 minutes prep, 20 minutes cooking), serving 4.
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