Cauliflower and potato pakoras
Many years ago, a friend recommended I join Twitter to share my food blog. For many years, I enjoyed being there and sharing my various thoughts, news, and other stuff. One thing I did was post "cooking threads" setting out dishes I was cooking, with ingredients, instructions and photos. This pakora recipe was originally one of my cooking threads. Sadly, for *reasons* Twitter isn't such a nice place any more, and therefore I am rescuing this old recipe thread and sharing it here as a blog post.
Serves 2 as a light lunch or 3-4 as a side dish
Ingredients
1 large potato, peeled
Half of a cauliflower, cut into florets
3 cloves of garlic
1”/2.5cm piece of ginger (use the thicker part of the rhizome)
Half a teaspoon of Chaat Masala (you could also use Garam Masala or Kitchen King)
Freshly ground black pepper
Half a teaspoon of salt
1 red or green finger (or birds eye) chilli, very finely diced (deseeded if you prefer)
1 cup (240 ml) gram flour (besan/ chick pea flour)
Water – please see instructions below – from 120 to 180 to a limit of 240 ml
2 tbsp cornflour
Ground nut or Rapeseed oil for frying
Optional (to serve): Mango chutney, chilli chutney, coriander chutney, tamarind sauce, Freshly ground black pepper, Amchoor.
Variations:
For extra crunch/crispiness, leave out the cornflour and add a little finely ground semolina. If you don't have cornflour, either substitute with rice flour or leave it out altogether.
Some people might want to add a little bicarbonate of soda to add a little air to the batter. I don't do this, and neither does my Mum. But feel free to experiment. Another way of adding air to the batter (which isn’t authentic, but would work) would be to use either fizzy water (good) or beer (even better) as you might for Tempura batter.
Other vegetable suggestions: - Onion - Bhindi (ladies' fingers) - Courgette - Aubergine - Bell pepper - Chilli - Lau (bottle gourd) – Spinach leaves.
If you like bitter flavours and want to try something really different, you could try Karela or bitter gourd. No need to take the seeds out.
Method
1. Finely grate three cloves of peeled garlic and a peeled 1" piece of ginger. Add to a jug or bowl, with half a teaspoon of Chaat Masala, a touch of freshly ground black pepper, half a teaspoon of salt and a very finely chopped chilli.
2. Add a cup of gram flour (besan) and a couple of tablespoons of cornflour and mix well.
3. Slowly add water, starting with half a cup, working up to three quarters of a cup (maximum one cup), mixing as you go until you have a batter the consistency of double cream. Your batter is ready.
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| Pakora batter |
4. Parboil your potato for 10 minutes, drain and run cold water to arrest the cooking. Slice into thin slices. Then coat in batter. (If you slice and then parboil, you will have to dry the slices before battering to ensure the batter sticks.)
5. Cut up half a cauliflower into florets and parboil for 4 minutes. Drain well and either dry off or give it a spin in a salad spinner. Get them as dry as you can to get maximum batter cling.
6. In a wok or karhai, heat up either rapeseed oil or groundnut oil (about 2" of oil will be ample).
7. Coat the veggies in the batter, batch by batch. Fry until golden brown, again, batch by batch. Don't overcrowd the pan or the oil will become too cool. Fish out with a slotted spoon or wire spoon.
8. Try to get rid of excess oil by drying on kitchen paper.
9. Season well. Serve with Indian chutney or sauce: Mango chutney, chilli chutney, coriander chutney or tamarind sauce. For extra zing, you could sprinkle a little Amchoor.
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| Potato pakoras, seasoned generously |
10. Enjoy as a snack or lunch, or as an accompaniment to your favourite Indian. Pakistani or Bangladeshi dishes.
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| Cauliflower and potato pakoras |
