Unripe jackfruit pakoda/ Halasinakai bajji/ unripe jackfruit fritters

Pakora or bajjis or podi (coastal Karnataka) are perfect evening snacks for monsoon season. It is heavenly feeling, when hot pakoda is served with a hot cup of coffee or tea while it is raining outside. This delicious deep fried snack can be made with number of vegetables.

Here I am sharing with our humble vegetable unripe jackfruit or halasina kai, which I tried recently! Check here for recipes of tender jackfruit bajji/ Plantain stem fritter.

Preparation time: 15 minutes (except cleaning of jackfruit)

Cooking time:  20 minutes

Serves: 3-4

Ingredients:

Unripe but mature jackfruit bulbs/ Halasina kai sole – 12-14

Gram flour/ Kadle hittu – ½ cup

Rice flour – 2 tbsp

Red Chilli powder – 1 teaspoon (adjust according to taste)

Salt – 1 spoon (to taste)

Ajwain/ Om kalu/ Carom seeds – ¼ teaspoon

Asafoetida – ¼ tsp

Garlic – 2 cloves crushed (optional)

Oil – for deep frying, I use coconut oil

Method:

Clean jackfruit bulbs, remove seed & outer fibrous parts. Cut into 2 halves lengthwise.

Prepare a batter for bajji or fritter.

Take a wide vessel with 1 cup of water. Add hing/ asafoetida, crushed garlic, salt, ajwain and chilli powder. Give a stir.

Add gram flour & rice flour, mix well to form a smooth batter adding enough water. This batter should not be too runny. Consistency should be such a way that, it should properly cover the jackfruit.

Now, heat oil in a frying pan.

When oil is ready, dip the cut jackfruit bulb one by one in the prepared flour batter to cover completely and drop carefully into hot oil. You can fry more number of bajjis in one batch depending on the oil in the pan.

Fry until done or golden brown flipping of the pakora in oil frequently. The hissing noise will be stopped when it is done.

Now take the pakoda out of hot oil, draining oil completely and transfer to a plate with the tissue paper spread on it.

Finish off all the jackfruit bulbs in above mentioned way.

Serve hot pakoda/ bajji with tomato sauce and a cup of tea/ coffee!

Notes:

With the same method you can make other bajjis like breadfruit or potato pakora.

If you are making capsicum/ ridge gourd/ brinjal then don’t add garlic which is optional even here.