The culture, history and recipe of batuk

One doesn’t have to wait for Maghe Sankranti or Maghi to eat batuk. Here’s how you can make the easy and nutritious dish.

On Maghe Sankranti eve, my mother would make batuk, a ring-shaped deep-fried black lentil fritter, and also boil a variety of tubers such as yam, taro, and sweet potato. We would eat them the following day. People believe that consuming food cooked on Maghe Sankranti day itself is inauspicious.