Vegetable Fritters, Pakoras, Gram Flour, Gluten Free, Snack

Fritters are an extremely popular street food and snack in many parts of the world. Be it apple fritters, potato fritters, corn fritters, crab cakes in the Anglo-American cuisine culture or Indonesian gorengan, Japanese tempura, South African dhaltjies and South Asian Pakoras/Bhajias, fritters are well loved everywhere because they are delicious, filling and real fast food.

In Pakistan pakoras are made with vegetable slices, hard boiled eggs and fish dipped into gram flour batter. Another variation is little bites made with gram flour batter mixed with chopped onions, coriander and green chillies. Spoons full of this batter are then deep fried in mustard oil, which are soft, mousse- like in the centre and crispy outside. These are sold by weight and are quite economical, therefore considered poor man’s feast. At homes pakoras are fried in vegetable oil and are served with afternoon tea or in a yogurt based curry.

Personally I don’t care much for deep fried food but hot n spicy pakoras are an exception, specially on rainy, windy, cold afternoons with a steaming hot cup of chai. My personal favourites are the spinach and green chilli ones; spinach leaves get super crispy and stay light whereas green chillies taste just amazing with all that heat covered with crispy coating. Enjoy !

For Vegetable Fritters, Pakoras :

2 medium potatoes, peeled and sliced
2 medium eggplants, sliced
6 spinach leaves
6 green chilli peppers
2 cups gram flour/chickpea flour/besan
2 tablespoons corn flour or rice flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon red chilli powder
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
Vegetable oil for frying
1 teaspoon salt and ground cumin mixed for filling in green chillies peppers

This Is What You Do :

Peel and thinly slice potatoes, slice eggplants, wash the grit off spinach leaves, slit green chillies lengthwise so that they stay connected to the stems, remove seeds.

Prepare the batter by mixing gram flour, corn flour or rice flour for a gluten free option, salt, red chilli powder and cumin seeds.

Add water, mix slowly 2 tablespoon at a time. Keep mixing and adding water till the batter is of a smooth paste like consistency, neither too thick, nor too thin.

Heat oil in a wok or deep frying pan on medium heat. Check the oil by dropping a spoonful of batter into the pan, if it rises immediately to the top then your oil is ready for frying.

Coat the potato slices with the batter and drop in the hot oil. Fry for 2-3 minutes or till the fritter is golden and crisp. Repeat with eggplants, spinach leaves and green chilli peppers.

Serve hot with your favourite dip.

Tip: don’t over crowd the pan while frying, add a few pieces at one time.
For crispier fritters place the fried ones on a wire mesh sieve, not on kitchen paper towel, to get rid of excess oil.