Power Pak

This story was created by our partners at the Heavy Table, a weekly culinary newsletter dedicated to covering the best food and drink of the Upper Midwest. Back them on Patreon to receive four distinct email newsletters focused on dining, the restaurant business, spirits, and home cooking: http://www.patreon.com/heavytable

Pakora, a traditional Indian vegetarian appetizer, is a universal crowd pleaser.

BY JAMES NORTON

James Norton / Heavy Table

Multiply the excitement of fresh fried food by the satisfying depth of Indian spices and sauces, and you have the pakora, a vegetable fritter that must surely rank as one of the most ravishingly delicious little bites of food in existence. Very good on their own, they’re insanely scrumptious when paired with sweet-tart tamarind or herbal yogurt dipping sauces.

I made this recipe (which I originally found online) my own through a tried-and-true method: I screwed it up. I forgot a major ingredient (the cabbage) entirely. The result was pakora that leaned heavily into the potatoes, ending up as more of an Indian-spiced french fry situation than a lighter, more delicate fritter. Based on their intense popularity, however, I am going to claim the error as an iterative improvement and pass along the recipe I (accidentally) designed. But should you want to incorporate cabbage, go ahead and mix in ½ cup of it along with the other vegetables.

The weakness of pakora as an appetizer choice (you’ll be frying to order and you’ll be limited by your fryer’s capacity to probably 8-10 pakora per wave) can be a strength - when I tested these out at a recent dinner party, I made them as a hot passed appetizer during the cocktail hour, and walked them around the room with their two dipping sauces on a platter. They were consumed while piping hot, their limited nature made them all the more popular, they created a lovely bit of spectacle, and they were popular enough that we fried at least a dozen batches before moving on, getting almost entirely through a quadruple batch (about 80 pakora.)

You can alternatively fry in advance and rewarm in a hot oven for about 5 minutes - not quite as crispy nor as exciting, but much more practical if you want to put out 40+ in a timely fashion while other things are happening.

Becca Dilley / Heavy Table

PAKORA
Makes about 20 small pakora

1 medium onions, peeled and finely sliced (around 1/2 cup)
1 large or 2 small carrots, peeled and finely sliced or coarsely grated (around 1/2 cups)
1 medium potato, peeled and sliced into thin sticks (around 3/4 cup)
1/4 cup fresh chopped cilantro
2 Tbsp finely chopped jalapeno
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground turmeric
1/2 tsp chili powder
2 Tbsp rice flour
Up to 4 oz/1/2 cup gram (chickpea) flour
Vegetable oil for frying

Prep vegetables: you are aiming for everything to be in long thin strips of roughly equal size (around 1½in). Place all the vegetables, fresh cilantro and jalapeño in a large mixing bowl and sprinkle over the salt, turmeric and chili powder. Mix with hands to make sure that all the vegetables are covered.

Sprinkle over the rice flour and mix together well. Now sprinkle over the gram flour a handful at a time, until it coats all the vegetables. Don’t go too heavy on it - try a little more than half and see where it gets you in terms of making fritters.

James Norton / Heavy Table

ix the vegetables and flours together, and squidge everything together really well. This will draw the moisture out of the vegetables which will combine with the flours to form a light batter. Sometimes you may also need to add a little splash of water and/or more of the chickpea flour for the batter to come together, but you may not need any, and the less you use the better. The vegetables should just about hold together when you press them into a ball, but they don’t need to be very sticky.

To fry the pakora, pre-heat plain vegetable oil to 180ºC/350°F.

With either your hands or two spoons, pick up small amounts of the batter and gently press them together so that each holds a loose nugget-shape of around 2in in diameter. Drop the first batch of pakora batter balls carefully into the hot oil and allow to cook gently for 5–7 minutes. Turn once during cooking.

When the pakora are deep bronzed-brown, use a slotted spoon to lift them carefully out of the hot oil and drain on kitchen paper. If the pakora remain doughy in the middle, reduce the heat of the oil and cook them more slowly, or make the pakora slightly smaller in the next batch.
Serve as soon as possible with raita and tamarind chutney. However if you need to fry them in advance, let them cool down in the open air and then reheat them in a 400 F oven for 5 minutes before eating.

RAITA
1/4 small onion, finely chopped
1 cup chopped fresh cilantro
3/4 cups whole-milk yogurt (not Greek)
1 Tbsp chopped fresh mint
1/4 teaspoon ground coriander
1 Tbsp (or more) fresh lemon juice
Kosher salt, freshly ground pepper

Combine onion, cilantro, yogurt, mint, coriander, and 2 tablespoons lemon juice in a medium bowl. Season sauce with salt, pepper, and more lemon juice, if desired.

TAMARIND CHUTNEY
1/2 cup tamarind concentrate
3 Tbsp dark brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon ground coriander
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

Combine tamarind concentrate, brown sugar, coriander, cumin, ginger, and 1/4 cup water in a small saucepan over medium heat. Cook, stirring, until sugar is dissolved and mixture is slightly thickened, about 4 minutes. Transfer to a small bowl and set aside.