Bread Pakoras

Where I live, it is always cloudy with a chance of rain; well and then there's about 3 months of sunshine. Some people think that this weather is rather depressing. But I think that it is actually quite romantic. A good excuse to snuggle up with your better-half. And a good excuse to eat some good old fried junk! Everybody likes some fried junk once in a while. I mean, come on, admit it, anything fried is "junkilicious!"

"Pakoras" are deep fried fritters- you can make them with onions, potatoes, cauliflower, spinach etc-- whatever you want. You can make chicken and fish pakoras too. And you can even make pakoras with bread.

1. The basic requirement for any kind of pakora is "besan," i.e. chickpea flour. You make a not-too-thick-not-too-thin smooth batter (you don't want lumps in there) with chickpea flour and water. Add salt, red chilli powder and any other spice of your choice. I, for instance, add cumin seeds, caraway seeds (ajwain), little bit of turmeric powder and sometimes even a pinch of garam masala. You could add some finely chopped green chillies and cilantro. Anything your mind desires.

2. Then take that bread. If it is sliced bread, I just cut each slice into four equal parts- so you get 4 little squares.

Chickpea batter and Bread Squares

3. Meanwhile pour in some oil in a pan/pot and get it going on the stove.

4. To check if the oil is hot enough or not, I just dip my finger into the batter and let that batter drop into the oil. I know that the oil is ready if that little droplet quickly sizzles and rises up and floats atop the oil. At that point, you start the frying process. Dip each bread square into the batter and then into the hot oil. I usually fry 5 to 6 squares in one go. Within a minute or two, one side will have browned up. Then you gotta flip all the squares so that the other side gets fried up too.

Dip the bread into the batter

Then put it into the hot oil

Frying up  one side

Flip to fry the other side

5. Once all the squares look nice and golden brown, you ladle them out with one of those slotted ladles. I put them onto a couple paper-towels just to blot out the extra oil (yeah, yeah, I know, it is anyway deep fried, so why bother......but hey, it is more for the esthetics).

Golden Brown Bread Pakoras!

6. Then you eat those hot, crisp junkilicious bread pakoras with ketchup or chutney or just by themselves! If it is raining outside, make yourself some lovely spiced Chai (tea) and you have the perfect combination! Mmm!

Junkilicious indeed!!

The next time it is cloudy outside and it is starting to rain and you are about to grumble about the weather, STOP! Go grab that bread and make yourself some bread pakoras and some spiced chai. Believe me, it'll make you happy. As for those extra calories, hey, knowing you, you probably would have already worked out a good sweat earlier during the day. So no sweat!