Indian food is my nemesis. Don’t get me wrong, I love all vegan Indian food—I’m just lousy at replicating it. More than once I’ve tried to replicate various dishes at home, but it always ends in disaster. I follow instructions exactly, use high-quality spices (and even the prepared ones that have everything mixed together for you with instructions) and BAM! instant straight-to-the-garbage-disposal-type failure.
However, I’ve had vegetable pakoras on my mind lately after having some amazing ones at an Indian restaurant a few weeks ago and, given that pakoras are deep-fried, I decided to take a stab at recreating them at home. (Although I may be lousy at replicating Indian dishes, I do know a thing or two about deep-frying.)
Because the recipe below is far from an authentic Indian pakora recipe (I used bread flour, unsweetened almond milk and sriracha), I am calling these fritters instead. The sriracha and curry powder combo tastes heavenly together here and the fritters themselves are crispy, soft, savory, subtly spicy and completely addictive.
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CURRIED CHICKPEA AND ONION FRITTERS
- Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients
- 1 can of chickpeas, rinsed
- 1/4 cup parsley, roughly chopped
- half of a medium-sized red onion, chopped
- 1/2 cup bread flour
- 3 TB chickpea flour
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk
- 1 1/2 tsp Ener-G
- 1 TB raw tahini
- 2 tsps curry powder
- oil for frying
- salt
- Equal parts Vegenaise and sriracha, mixed for the dipping sauce
Instructions
- Place half of the chickpeas into a bowl and roughly mash them with a fork. Add in the rest of chickpeas, parsley, chopped onion and the flours.
- In a measuring cup, add the milk, Ener-G, tahini and curry powder. Whisk until well combined, then add to the chickpea mixture. Mix everything up, cover and place in the refrigerator to chill for at least an hour.
- When you are ready to fry, place plenty of oil into a small saucepan over medium-high heat. After about 8-10 minutes, it should be ready. Throw a pinch of the batter into the oil—if it sizzles immediately, you are ready to fry.
- Stir up your chickpea batter with a strong fork. Scrape out a bit of the batter, keeping a messy shape to it. Slowly slide it into the oil and fry until golden brown, about 5 minutes. Remove with a heat-resistant slotted spoon or tongs and place on paper towels to drain. Sprinkle it with some salt immediately after taking it out of the oil.
- To achieve crispy fritters, only fry one or two at a time—if you add to many, it reduces the temperature of the oil, leaving you with soggy and oily fritters.
- Serve immediately with the sriracha-vegenaise sauce.
