Who doesn’t like Pakoras, a crispy deep fried
snacks made of chopped onions!? Now let us make it little healthy by adding
today’s super food Moringa/drumstick leaves. How do you feel reading this? Have
you ever tried in your kitchen? Believe me it is very tasty with crunchiness
intact but added greens. I initially tried it with the Moringa chutney powder
that I make at home. Added about 4 tbsp of spicy chutney powder (for some
reason, that chutney powder turned very spicy hence I had to finish it off this
way) and did not use any other spice except salt & asafoetida. That was a
super hit and for the second and subsequent trials I used fresh leaves chopped
along with onions. It makes a perfect combination to the evening tea especially
the current winter evenings!
Notes:
Preparation
time: 15 minutes
Cooking
time: 20 minutes
Serves:
3-4
Ingredients:
Onions
– 3 (medium)
Moringa
leaves (fresh) – 1- 1.5 cups
Curry
leaves – 2-3 sprigs
Gram
flour – ¼ cup
Rice
flour/ corn flour – 1 tbsp
Asafoetida
– ¼ tsp
Chilli
powder – ½ tsp
Salt
– ¾ tsp or little less
Sambhar
powder – ¼ tsp
Chat
masala/ garam masala – 2 pinches (optional)
Carom
seeds/ Om kalu – ¼ tsp (optional)
Oil
– for deep frying
Method:
- Clean the leaves removing very hard stems and leaves affected by pests. Wash thoroughly with the running water. Dry with a clean kitchen towel. Same way, clean curry leaves as well.
- Chop these cleaned leaves fine.
- Peel off onions, wash and chop as desired; that is chop fine or slice thin.
- Now, mix chopped leaves and onions. Add all other ingredients except oil. Mix well with your fingers by pressing gently so that the required moisture is released from the greens & onions. It is fine if it crumbles or comes to dropping consistency. You can sprinkle few drops of water if required & looks very dry. It is good to go if the flours become wet and everything binds well.
- Keep oil in a frying pan to heat. Keep the flame medium.
- When oil is ready, shred/ drop the prepared pakora mix little at a time. Fry until hissing noise is stopped. You can also make small balls of it and drop into the oil (as you like).
- Strain and remove the pakoras from oil and transfer to a plate with tissue spread on it.
- Finish off the mix completely following above step.
- Serve pakoras hot with tomato sauce and a cup of tea.
- If you make the pakoras without moringa leaves it is onions pakora/ Neerulli bajji.
- Optionally, you can add chopped green chillis with the chopped green leaves to make it spicier.
- If you use moringa chutney powder instead fresh moringa leaves, you can leaves ingredients such as sambhar powder, chilli powder…
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