Pakoda

Ingredients:
1 cup Gram flour
½ cup Rice flour (add 3 tbsp along with this)
¼ tsp Baking soda
1¼ tsp Salt
4 tbsp Ghee / vanaspathi (room temperature)
¼ cup Water
2 Onion (cut lengthwise) (medium)
2 Green chili (finely chopped) (medium)
5 clove Garlic (crushed)
1 tbsp Ginger (crushed)
1 tsp Cumin seeds
¼ tsp Turmeric powder
¼ tsp Red chili powder
3 cup Oil (for deep frying)
few Curry leaves

Method:
1. If ghee or vanaspathi is cold, just bring them to room temperature.
2. Cream ghee or vanaspathi with baking soda until its well blended.
3. Combine gram flour, rice flour, turmeric powder, red chili powder and salt. Add this to the creamed fat and mix to form a crumbly textured flour.
4. To this, add onions, chopped chilies, curry leaves, crushed ginger and garlic. Mix well to coat the flour mixture on all sides.
5. Slowly add water as you knead and form a stiff dough. It should look like a thick mass, but not too sticky.
6. Meanwhile heat oil in a kadai(medium high flame). When its ready, try a sample first. Fry till golden on all sides, cool and wait for 10 minutes. Now taste it to check whether its crunchy enough.

Tips & Tricks:
The oil should not be very hot nor low.The temperature of the oil should be just right.
By mistake if you add more water and if the dough looks too soft then you would end up making soft pakodas. Its OK, but in order to make them crispy, the dough should be just about firm.

Tip: Add extra rice flour, adjust salt and try again.

If you fry them too long expecting them to turn crispy, you will end up having very hard pakodas. Please do not keep them too long, when they are evenly browned, the vigorous bubbles will settle and that’s the key to remove.