Saturday, August 23, 2008

Crispy Onion Bhajis

Last night’s dinner had an Indian theme. The main course was a Lamb Shank Dhansak, roughly based on an old Nigella Lawson stew recipe and for starters, hot little onion bhajis with raita and chutneys. After turning the house upside down looking for the scrap of paper with my ancient recipe on it, I ended up following the one on the side of the Natco Gram Flour bag. And they were great. Eat them as soon as they come out of the pan.

Makes about 24
2 large onions, thinly sliced
1 tbsp roughly chopped coriander leaves
2 green chilles, seeded and thinly sliced
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp salt
½ tsp hot chilli powder
1 -2 teacups gram flour
¼ tsp bicarbonate of soda
lemon wedges, to serve

Heat a few centimeters of sunflower oil in a wok.

Mix together the onions, coriander, chillies, cumin, salt, chilli, gram flour and bicarb, making sure the onions are well coated. Stir in some cold water to make a thick batter then leave to rest for 5 minutes or so until the oil is hot enough.

Drop small spoonfuls into the pan (I cooked mine in batches of 4 and put them straight onto the table where they disappeared just as the next batch was ready) – and cook until crisp and golden - they should take about 3 minutes, if they’re taking longer, let the oil get a bit hotter to ensure they cook crisply. Drain on kitchen paper and serve with wedges of lemon.

3 comments:

BLTP said...

snap we had cauliflower as well there's the temptation just to stand round the pan eating them!

Bush Mummy said...

Ooh sounds delicious. Where do I get gram flour and what is it exactly?

BM x

Archie_V said...

Gram flour is made from chickpeas. You should be able to find it fairly easily these days. If not, but you do see stuff called "garbanzo flour" or "besan", then grab that; it's exactly the same thing, cunningly disguised under another name.