Cooking For One or Two - A Guide to Budget Meals and Stretching Your Money

If all you know about East Indian food is papadums and samosas, you're going to love pakoras. The batter is made from chickpea flour - known as "besan" in East and West Indian groceries. The filling is up to you: diced vegetables of all kinds. Just make sure you use firm vegetables (i.e., stay away from delicates like peas, snow peas, celery, sprouts). I'm not a beer-drinker myself, but as with samosas, word is that pakoras are great with beer. Keep in mind, though, that both items are very high in protein. Don't over-indulge.

In the interests of keeping my recipe posts shorter, I'm trying a new, non-traditional format, the summarized recipe, for some dishes. If you don't like (or if you do), drop me a line.

Ingredients: (1) Besan/chickpea flour (or grind your own from dried chickeas); (2) water to form a batter; salt and black pepper, crushed red pepper flake (optional) and a 1/2 tsp of curry powder or ground cumin; (3) onion, diced potato, eggplant, zuchinni, cauliflower - all cut into large chunks.

Preparation: (1) Place the chickpea flour or ground chickpeas in a mixing bowl. (2) Add salt, pepper, chili flake, and curry powder or cumin. (3) Now slowly add about 1/4 cup of water at a time, and mix with a fork. When you have a thick batter that isn't runny, add another 1/8 cup of water and mix thoroughly. (4) Add all the diced, raw veggies and mix so that the pieces are all coated. (5) Wash your hands and dry carefully. (6) For best results, deep fry heaping tablespoonfuls of batter and veggies as individual "balls". If you prefer shallow frying, use about 1/2 inch of cooking oil in a cast-iron pan. The latter method produces flatter, denser fritters. The former method produces fluffier but crispy bulging spheres. Cook fritters on high heat until almost golden brown, about 3-4 minutes, then flip over to cook the other side (about 3 minutes). Note: these fritters tend to burn sooner in a cast-iron pan, so you may need to reduce cooking time and/or heat slightly. (7) Use a slotted spoon to remove fritters, and move to a plate lined with a double-layer of paper towels (kitchen paper).

Presentation: Serve with tamarind dipping sauce, raita (sour cream w/ small-diced cucumber), mango chutney, sriracha hot sauce, or even ketchup.

(c) Copyright 2005-present, Raj Kumar Dash, http://curryelviscooks.blogspot.com

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