Homemade Indian Pakora Recipe

Spicy Indian pakora are the perfect appetizer or side dish for a cold night. They're battered, deep-fried, richly seasoned and slightly spicy.  They're also a bit of work. If your cupboard isn't already stocked with Indian spices, this is your excuse to make a trip to the Indian grocery store.

Since we're trying to use up vegetables we have a spring clean our kitchen, we used cooked eggplant slices, raw zucchini, and raw onions.  However, you can use whatever vegetables you have lying around - try cauliflower, broccoli, potatoes or sweet potatoes. 

Serve pakora with almost any kind of spicy dipping sauce, sweet-and-sour sauce, chutney, or plum sauce.

Eggplant needs to be salted and sweated before using. If using raw eggplant (i.e. not cooked leftovers from another dish), cut it first and set it to sweat (instructions below) before chopping the rest of the vegetables.

Homemade Indian Pakora Recipe

Time to prepare: 30 minutes (not including the eggplant)

Time to cook: 15 minutes

Serves: 4

Vegetable ingredients:

• 1 small eggplant, sliced into rounds (salted and sweated for about an hour)
• 1 small zucchini, sliced into spears
• 1 cooking onions, thickly sliced

 Or other vegetables such as:

• Potatoes
• Sweet potatoes
• Cauliflower, broken into florets
• Broccoli, broken into florets

Batter ingredients:

This batter recipe will cover about 3 cups of vegetables.

• 1 cup chickpea (gram) flour
• ¾ cup water
• ½ Tbsp. dried ground coriander
• ½ Tbsp. ground cardamom
• 1 Tbsp. turmeric
• ½ Tbsp. garam masala (an Indian spice mix)
• 1 (scant) Tbsp. fenugreek
• ½ Tbsp. powdered ginger
• ½ Tbsp. ground cumin
• ½ tsp. salt
• Pinch cracked black pepper
• Vegetable oil, for frying

Directions:

1. Cut the vegetables into uniformly sized pieces: cut the eggplant and onion into discs no thicker than ½-centimetre (¼-inch) thick; cut zucchini into quarters lengthwise to make spears; cut potatoes into large cubes and keep cauliflower in florets.
2. If you haven't already sweated the eggplant, do it now: sprinkle eggplant slices generously with coarse salt and let drain for at least 30 minutes. Rinse and pat dry before using.
3. Make batter: sift the chickpea flour into a bowl. Using a fork to mix as you go, slowly add the water. Add the spices: coriander, cardamom, turmeric, garam masala, fenugreek, ginger, cumin, salt and pepper.
4. Heat a large shallow skillet over medium heat. Before adding vegetables, test that the oil is hot: add a drop or two of batter. The batter should sizzle and start to cook immediately.
5. When the oil is hot, shallow-fry the vegetables for several minutes on each side, until light golden brown.
6. Drain vegetables on paper towels. 

Sifting chickpea flour for pakora

 Frying eggplant pakora

Completed eggplant pakora