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

XMAS

I love handmade gifts...even just a greeting card, I'd be overjoyed whenever I got one. It shows how much effort you put into making it, hence showing how much care you have for the person...so consider yourself lucky if you've got one from me! lol. So last Christmas I gave two of my closest friends these! Too bad didn't take the pics of what's inside, which was home-made lemon and rum chocolate truffles :)

Red nose Rudolph for M, and Movember moustache for N

MONDAY BABY!

Hoping myself for a great week :)

ANYWHERE :)

Of all places in the world, I read this quote on 9gag, loved it so much and voila! :)

ST. NAIVE

Goodnight :)

xx

WATERCOLOR #1

childhood snack - sugar cookies

strawberry lattice pie

my fave summer drink

Been having a blog crush on handmadelove since a long time ago and I just knew that I needed to do my own version of watercolor food painting (still practicing tho). However, being the queen of ADHD that I always am, I only managed to pick up my painting tools from under a pile of a year's worth of books and papers. Well, it was so much fun painting these! (one night I ended up sleeping at 3am lol)

Last year I had the chance to meet Dawn Tan in person during Mark-it @ Federation Square. She's such a lovely and bubbly person! She really inspired me to make something out of things that I love...so do check out her blog and online store!

PS: I will definitely do a full coverage of her and her awesome works soon!

BLUE MOON

Good morning Melbourne!

I've been busy working on some paintings and taking some pictures in the city. Pics will be up soon. Have a nice day :)