ONION PAKORAS

Pakoras are Indian fritters and I stumbled upon this super easy yet delish recipe when I was browsing randomly through The Sophisticated Gourmet's lovely blog. I told S & R that I wanted to try it out, and they were very excited and took me to the nearest Indian/Pakistani grocery in Malvern and Glenferrie.

Psst, they gave me a handy tips of adding rice flour into the batter to get that extra crunchy-soggy-proof batter. Awesomeness :)

Onion Pakoras & Ketchup Chutney
Makes 20-24

Recipe has been modified, based on The Sophisticated Gourmet recipe

Ingredients:

Tomato Chutney

½ cup ketchup
1 tablespoon water
½ tablespoon chaat masala
½ teaspoon sugar
½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon cayenne pepper (optional, I just wanted the chutney to be a lil more spicy)

Direction: Just mix everything together in a small bowl and adjust the salt/sugar according to taste. Set aside.

Pakoras
2 cups (250g / 8.8 oz) Besan (also known as: Chickpea Flour or Gram Flour)
2 heaped tablespoon rice flour (optional, just for the extra crunchy batter)

1 tablespoon crushed red pepper
¾ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking powder
1 green chilii pepper, sliced
½ cup fresh Cilantro leaves, chopped

a pinch of turmeric powder (optional, I just liked the subtle taste)

1 yellow onion, sliced into 1/8-inch half moons (I thought 1 onion wasn't enough, but trust me, it was lol)

1 cup luke-warm water

Direction:

1. Heat up the oil in a frying pan that is big enough for frying 3 pakoras, because you don't want to fry too many pakoras at once as they will become soggy

2. In large bowl, mix all the dry ingredients of the pakoras with a wooden spoon and then gradually add water until you get a thick batter. The batter should be thick like pancake batter, when you're done, mix in the sliced onion.

TSG directed the sliced onions to be added into the dry mixture followed with water, but I found that the batter will mix better when I put in the sliced onion later on.

3. Fry a heaped spoonful of onion batter in the hot oil, just remember not to overcrowd the frying pan as I mentioned earlier. Fry until the pakoras turn golden brown and then cool them off on a cookie sheet over a cooling rack