Aloo Pakoda

Aloo pakoda are crispy, savory potato fritters with gram flour.

Course Snack, Starter

Cuisine Indian

Prep Time 15

Cook Time 15

Total Time 30

Servings

Calories

Peel and coarsely grate potato.
Rinse grated potato in water to remove starch. Squeeze out as much water as possible.
Transfer potato grate to a strainer or a colander and keep aside until ready to use.
Chop onions, green chilies, green onions or scallions and cilantro.
Heat the oil in a pan for deep frying.
In big bowl take gram flour, sooji if using, rice flour, salt, chili powder, cumin, coriander powder, baking soda and mix all the dry ingredients.
Add garlic and chopped green chilies, cilantro, green onions, onions to the dry ingredients and mix
Then add grated potato to the flour mixture and mix well to form a batter.
Add 1-2 tbsp. of oil and mix well. Water is not required. The batter will be thick but not as thick as roti dough.
Take fistful of batter and drop small portions of the batter into oil. It is more like sprinkling the batter in oil.
Fry the pakodas for 3-4 minutes on medium flame, turning them around in between or until the pakodas are light golden brown and cooked inside.
Remove from oil, drain on paper towels. Repeat the above step for the remaining batter.
Serve hot with green chili chutney or as it is. I usually like it without any chutney.

Sooji is added to make pokoda crisp. The first time I made these pakoda, I did not use sooji and add 2 tbsp. of rice flour and the pakoda were not crispy. This time I added fine sooji and some rice flour.
Grated potatoes canbe substituted with sliced onions to make onion pakoda.