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Chanting the prayer, “Rain, Rain come again another day, we will get our pakoras and chutney with chai ready on a tray”, I was hoping we’d be lucky with monsoon in Delhi this year. Guess what? We actually did. Now, when the weather is so pleasant and the cool breeze is blowing on your face, the one thing someone like me craves for is a cup of hot tea and something fried and crispy on the side. While I have known pakoras to be the quintessential monsoon snack, my knowledge of the kind of pakoras one could make was limited.
My grandmother was married to a family, who resided in Bengal. She spent a large part of her marriage in the City of Joy but once when my great-grandfather fell ill, they had to move to Delhi, leaving behind numerous memories. Today, I often find a lot of things in terms of language and food, specifically, that has an touch of Bengal. For instance, the tele bhaja, which is a Bengali word for something “fried in oil” is commonly used by my grandmother to refer to the pakoras we eat. In fact, whenever my mother prepares fish curry with rice, there is always some beguni on the side. Beguni are eggplant or brinjal fritters where the eggplant is sliced into thin discs and coated with salt before frying them in oil.
Pakoras, by now you would have established, are vegetables that are coated with a thick batter and fried in oil. The crispy layer gives any vegetable a remarkable makeover. Dipped in tomato sauce or a coriander chutney makes it the perfect way to welcome monsoon. Did you know that just like Bengalis, every other state has their own version of pakoras?
India On A Fritter Platter
If cooking techniques and cuisines can be so diverse in a country like India, then why not the pakoras? Let’s start with some well-known pakoras, say kanda bhajiya from Maharashtra. Kanda refers to onion in Marathi. Thinly-sliced onions are coated with a besan batter and deep-fried until they turn dark brown. The use of garlic cloves, green chilies and coconut milk is what makes them so different from the regular pyaaz pakoras you find elsewhere.
Close to Maharashtra, we’ve got the Rajasthani mirchi vada which is very popular in the state. The Rajasthani cuisine is inherently a spicy affair, with laal maas and other hot curries on their menu. Mirchi vada, as the name suggests, is high on the heat meter as it is purely made of a special thick green chilly. The chillies are deseeded to stuff them with a spicy potato filling. It is then dipped in a batter of gram flour and fried until golden brown.
We’ve talked about several savoury pakoras but did you know there are some sweet fritters too? Colloquially called gulgule, these wheat-flour sweet balls are fried till they turn extremely dark brown. The gulgule are stuffed with nuts and coconut, giving them a delicious taste. Although these belong to Uttar Pradesh, but the geographical boundaries blurr when it comes to food. These gulgule have spread their magic to neighbouring states of Chhattisgarh and Orissa too. Fun fact: They are often called mini Indian donuts.
Moreover, Chhattisgarh has its own kind of chawal ke pakore. These rice pakoras are made by flattening the rice batter, mixed with curd, hing and besan, into a chapatti-like disc, which is garnished with coriander leaves. It might appear as a chila or poora at first, but once you take a bite of the crispy exterior, all your doubts will vanish.
Southern Indian is no less when it comes to the fritter platter. From Maddur Vada to Ulli Pakodi, they’ve got it all covered. Since bananas are the next popular thing in the south after coconut, the coastal state of Kerala loves their Pazham Pori which are nothing but fried banana pakoras. The bananas lend the pakoras a hint of sweetness that is balanced well with the spicy batter.
It’s raining pakoras everywhere, it seems. We can see you are already slurping so we won’t keep you waiting!
