Pakora is a delicious Indian vegetarian dish, fried and usually served as an appetizer. Pakora is an aromatic and fragrant street food, delicious when eaten hot and accompanied by various types of sauces. It is often eaten as a snack instead of chips. Making pakora, or bajji, is very easy, although you will need to spend a little time frying them.
It is a fritter made with chickpea flour, grated vegetables and spices. The original recipe calls for onion, green chili peppers, spinach, potatoes, aubergines and so on, spices and chickpea flour as the main ingredients. You can then create small meatballs, or put the batter directly into the hot oil.
The main feature of pakoras is that they are crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. How can we achieve this result? It's simple: we will have to finely chop the vegetables or, even better, grate them, and use chickpea flour to prepare the batter.
Vegetarian pakoras are very rustic fried foods, so you don't need to shape them too carefully. Use two spoons, just like you would with pancakes. Once ready, you can eat them while they're still hot, or keep them in the fridge for a couple of days. In this case, however, heat them up a little in the oven before enjoying them. It can also be made into an air fryer.
Similar to bhaji, another classic fried food in Indian cuisine, the trick to making a good vegetable pakora is in the way you shape it with your thumb, which is very easy and will also allow you to make them very quickly.
There are different varieties of pakora, such as paneer pakora, made with paneer (a soft cheese), pyaz pakora made with onion, palak pakora , prepared with spinach or aloo pakora made with potatoes. So you can have fun and make pakora with whatever you have available or whatever you like best. Here's how to prepare it to perfection, following our recipe step by step.
Ingredients
1 red onion
1 large green pepper or 2 small ones
3 small potatoes, 400 g or 14 oz, raw
1 handful fresh cilantro, chopped
1 tablespoon garam masala
½ teaspoon turmeric powder
½ teaspoon ground cumin
½ teaspoon salt
⅛ teaspoon ground cayenne, optional
¾ cup chickpea flour, 90 g
½ cup water, 125 ml
Cooking oil, enough to make pakoras float
Instructions
Cut the onion and pepper into julienne strips. Peel the potatoes and grate them with a grater.or cut them into julienne strips, but very thin.
Put the vegetables in a bowl along with the cilantro and spices and stir.
Add the chickpea flour and water and stir until all the ingredients are well combined. I prefer to use my hand to make the pakora dough better.
Pour a little oil into a frying pan and when it is hot, add handfuls or spoonfuls of the mixture. Cook over medium-high heat until golden brown on both sides (approximately 2 or 3 minutes per side).
Serve as is or with your favorite sauce. We love them with our green chutney.
You can store the pakoras in an airtight container in the refrigerator for about 5-7 days.
