Baya Kyaw or Burmese yellow split peas fritters are vegan, gluten free fritters from Burma or Myanmar. Crispy, spicy fritters make a great snack, appetizer and a light meal.
Burmese Yellow Split Peas Fritters
Baya Kyaw are deep fried fritters with yellow split peas. To prepare fritter batter, yellow split peas are soaked overnight and then ground to a coarse paste. Baya Kyaw are a great finger food to serve at parties and also a nice snack with evening tea.
Baya kyaw is similar to masala vada, both in taste and preparation. You will not even notice a difference between Burmese fritters and masala vada unless mentioned. In fact chana dal is a good substitute for yellow split pea, though these two are from different legume families.
Ingredients for Fritters
Yellow Split Peas, Bird’s eye red chili, onion, cilantro, paprika, turmeric and oil are the main ingredients for baya kyaw. Chana dal and green chilies are a good substitute for yellow split peas and bird’s eye chilies respectively.
Preparation
Soak split peas overnight, grind to a coarse paste along with chilies, mix rest of the ingredients, shape and deep fry. Do not add too much water when grinding split peas.
How to serve
Serve fritters with green or coriander chutney or a chili dipping sauce of your choice. These make a great evening snack, breakfast and also a light meal. Fritters are also great to serve as a finger food at parties. You can stuff fritters in pita bread just like falafel and serve with some yogurt sauce or tzatziki sauce.
Storing
Fritters stay good for 12 - 20 hours at room temperature and in the refrigerator for 2-3 days. Reheat in a microwave for a few seconds before serving. Bawa kyaw freezes very well. When planning on freezing, fry fritters just until golden and cool completely before freezing. On the day of serving, thaw and grill on each side for 2-4 minutes.
This post was first published on 3 Jun, 2015. Updating the post to insert a recipe card and images to meet Google & theme requirements.
Bawa Kyaw Recipe
📖 Recipe
Baya Kyaw ~ Burmese Yellow Split Peas Fritters
Equipment
- Food Processor
- Mixing Bowls
- Pan for deep frying
- Spoons to shape fritters
- Slotted Spoon
- Paper Towels to drain fritters
Ingredients
- 1 cup Yellow Split Peas approx. or 225 grams, soaked overnight or for 7-8 hours
- 1 Bird’s Eye Red Chili chopped or 2 green chilies
- 2 tablespoon Water for grinding the peas
- 1 medium Onion chopped about ½ – ⅔ cups chopped Onion
- Handful of fresh Coriander Leaves chopped about ¼ - ½ cup
- ¼ teaspoon Paprika adjust to taste. I used 1 teaspoon Chili Powder
- ¼ teaspoon Turmeric Powder
- 1 teaspoon Salt
- Oil for deep frying
Instructions
- Wash and soak yellow split peas overnight or up to 7-8 hours.
- Transfer dal to a colander and drain water. Take ½ of the peas in a food processor and coarsely pulse it. Transfer to a bowl and keep aside.
- Take the remaining peas in the processor bowl, add chopped chilies and process until smooth. Add some water if required. I added 2 tablespoon of water.
- Transfer ground paste to the bowl of coarsely pulsed peas, add onion, cilantro, salt, chili powder/paprika, coriander leaves and mix everything together.
- Heat oil in a pan to deep fry fritters.
- Using a teaspoon scoop out some mixture. Using another teaspoon shape the mixture to an oval shape.
- Drop in hot oil and fry for 2-4 minutes on medium flame until golden brown. Depending on the size of the pan, 6-8 fritters at a time. Do not over crowd.
- Remove from oil with a slotted spoon and drain on paper towels.
- Serve warm with coriander chutney or sour chili tamarind dip.
Notes
- Substitutes -Replace yellow split peas with chana dal. I replace bird's eye chili with green chili
- Make ahead - Fritters freeze very well. Fry fritters until just golden. Let them cool completely before freezing, When ready to serve, defrost and grill for 2-4 minutes on side before serving. I have not tried this but it might work.
- Variation - For a variation use moong dal instead of split peas or follow moong dal garelu recipe with split peas. You can also follow masala vada recipe using just yellow split peas.
- Nutrition - Values in the label are approximate for 1 fritter.
Nutrition
This is my post for this week’s Global Cuisine theme. Check out the Blogging Marathon Page to see what my fellow marathoners are doing this BM.
This post was first published on 3 Jun, 2015.
Janet Lardner says
Hi tried this a couple of weeks ago delicious. However I had soaked the split yellow peas for 48 hours. Tonight I cooked with yellow split peas soaked for 14 hours, big difference, the fritters were gritty and horrible. My advise is to soak the longer the better. Very disappointed tonight had to throw half of the away.
Usha Rao says
I am sorry to hear this. I make fritters with lentils all the time. I usually soak overnight or 6-8 hours for split lentils and it always works for me. I will test it again and thanks for your feedback.
chantal Vincent says
The most delicious fritters ever!!!!! I also prepared the suggested Dhania chutney and was that ever worth it. If you want to be told over and over how "fantastic" the mea is, this is the one. Thank you My Spicy kitchen.
Suma Gandlur says
Sounds delicious. It is interesting to see how recipes transcend borders and cuisines.
Harini Rupanagudi says
These fritters are so tempting. I agree that the split yellow peas can be substituted with chana dal and they would taste just the same. Anyway we can come up with chutneys and fritters with any ingredient on hand 🙂
Vaishali says
It’s interesting to see how the different legumes and pulses are used to make these vadas . Have never tried with yellow peas , will do so soon , in fact I feel we can try different pulses and I am sure they would be popular somewhere !
The fritters look super tempting !
Stephan says
Hi Usha that looks amazing is yellow Split Peas chana dhal ? As in France it's quite difficult to find ? Many thanks
MySpicyKitchen says
Stephan, yellow split peas and chana dal are different. But one can substitute yellow split peas with chana dal in this recipe.
Sowmya:) says
Looks crispy and tasty!
veena krishnakumar says
These look very crunchy!!!
Preety Mohata says
Nice pictures.. It's looks so inviting..
Vaishali Sabnani says
Super clicks and an amazing choice, wonderful Usha.
PJ says
Wow Usha! These look so crunchy!!! Love pics as usual 🙂
Priya Srinivasan says
Is the plate green or yellow? Suddenly gone color blind!! Sorry If it is green, it looks like yellow for me
MySpicyKitchen says
Priya, it is yellow. You have not gone color blind.. 🙂
Priya Srinivasan says
Lovely pics usha, that yellow plate in which you have served the fritters so compliments the dish, superb!!
As Sandhya said they look very similar to our paruppu vadai, nicely crisp and crunchy!!
Pavani says
Awesome clicks Usha, makes me want to grab a few fritters right off the screen 🙂 Fritters look crispy and yummy!!
Varada says
Love the new look. The pictures are lovely. These sound a lot like masala vada.
Harini says
Awesome new look and the fritters are just too tempting.
themadscientistskitchen says
awesome new look for the blog. As for these fitters they are awesome. In fact I have been googling to see what split yellow peas look like.
sizzlingtastebuds says
Your new blog layout looks good ! And these fritters are so tempting 🙂
cookingwithsapana says
Those fritters looks so delicious and stunning.
Chef Mireille says
they look so perfectly crispy crunchy
pumpkinfarmfood says
u have got the shape of madellines here, they look stunning
Sandhya Ramakrishnan says
Love to see the similarities between the cuisines! They do look like our masala vadai. Lovely choice and I would love some as snack as well 🙂
priya says
Such a super crispy fritters, feel like munching some rite now.
Sarita says
Love these fritters Usha! Great snack for all. Awesome pics !
Praba Bubesh says
fritters look soo crispy and yummy...great evening snack...
Suma gandlur says
The chili shortage thing was kinda surprising to me. And the fritters look great.
Rajani says
The pictures are awesome Usha. So well captured. Good to know about the frozen chilli, I haven't bought green chillies for a longtime now.
Sushma says
Great usha, I made this for day 3 post. Urs look delicious and crispy.
Srivalli says
Awesome pictures Usha...I enjoyed reading the post..I wanted to do the same as well. However after reading felt it would be same as you said. So selected something else, which also ended up being like Indian pakodas. Guess we Indians have all sorts of fritters..:)..btw I didn't comment on the new layout, it looks so beautiful...how abt the header though?..
MySpicyKitchen says
Thanks Valli! As of now I do not have any plans to have a header. There are already so many photos in the post. I could not find a template that met all my requirements and I also want some ads on the blog. So going with out a header for now.