The Egg Board should offer us, the food bloggers, at least some free eggs. With this month’s IBBM and EoMEoTE themes happening one after another, the publicity, the recipes- this is going to be one incredible edible egg kind of week.
Egg pakoras are one of my favorite street side food during my college years. After coming here I totally forgot about it. I was thinking about what I could make with eggs that was not already included in the EoMEoTE and I could submit for this months IBBM hosted by lovely Seattle Bon Vivant. Then I remembered the egg pakoras.
Say what you will about Indian street fare, but for my money, you can’t get food tastier than samosas or egg pakoras fresh from a street side vendor’s stall. But I am far from India now and I wanted to get a taste of egg pakoras here, so here I go into the kitchen to refresh those student days’ experiences.
Ingredients to prepare egg pakoras
Recipe:
(Serves two)
6 boiled eggs
1 cup gram flour (Besan Flour)
1/2 tsp each of salt, red chilli powder,
1/4 tsp each of cumin & ajwain/vaamu
A pinch of baking soda
Quarter cup of water
Peanut Oil for deep-frying
Preparation:
1. Cut each egg into 3 circular pieces. I removed yellow from some pieces, but you can keep it if you like to.
2. Gram flour is a fine yellow flour made from garbanzo beans or chanadal. Put the gram flour into a bowl; add salt, red chilli powder, cumin and baking soda. If you want, you can also add ginger-garlic paste to get the extra kick. Stir in these ingredients well. Add quarter cup of water to them and mix thoroughly. Add water if needed, the prepared batter must be tight (tighter than pancake batter and regular bhaji batter). It should form thick coating around the eggs when they are dipped in the batter.
3. Fill one-third of a large deep skillet with oil and heat the oil until it is very hot.
4. Dip the egg pieces one by one into batter, taking caution to coat the egg all around with the batter. This is important because there will be a mini explosion if raw egg touches the hot oil, as you may already know, and that is why the need for a thick batter. Now take the dipped egg pieces and drop them gently into the hot oil, few at a time.
5. Fry the egg pakoras until they are golden brown, turning frequently. Remove them with a slotted spoon and drain well on absorbent paper towels.
Arrange the pakoras on a platter and serve them hot or warm with ketchup or cilantro chutney.
These small egg pakoras are quick and easy to prepare and irresistible as snack.
