Subzi Pakora Chaat

Tempura-like-batter-coated fried vegetables called pakoras layered with hot, sweet, salty and sour chutneys is another popular snack food in India.

This is another great recipe from  660 Curries cookbook, I adapted it a little to my style. You can serve this as an appetizer, or a snack. Just be prepared to make this a lot as this will be the most requested dish at your home.

 This is so simple to make once you have all the chutneys in place. I put off making this dish for the longest time thinking that it would not taste that special. After all pakoras are quite common in our household. However, the other day when I was making some onion pakora, I decided to go all out and make the Sabzi Pakora Chaat. It turned out to be such a hit with both my husband and my son. My son even came for seconds !

This dish does have a couple of chutneys, which are easily available in any Indian grocery store, or you can make them at home. Once the chutneys are in place this dish comes together rather quickly and disappears twice as fast. Do not be intimidated by the number of steps in the recipe, it is fairly easy to make. So once you fry enough of the pakoras , assemble them and pour the chutneys on them and serve. These taste best when hot or warm.

Sindhi Koki

A very popular Sindhi breakfast dish. It is very much like a paratha with a little variation to it. This crispy, tasty, nutritious and hot parathas are a favorite of my son, who loves to have some in the mornings before going to school or even take some to school in his lunch box. It is also a wonderful idea for a breakfast on a lazy weekend morning.


Makes 5 - 6 medium sized Kokis

Ingredients

2 cups / 300 gm / 10.6 oz  chappati atta / whole wheat flour used to make chappatis or rotis ( available at any Indian store )
1 big red onion , finely chopped
2 small green chilies, finely chopped
1/4 cup cilantro, finely chopped
1 large carrot, peeled and grated ( optional - not part of the original koki recipe but something I have added for extra nutrition. )
1/2  tsp of salt
1 tsp oil + extra oil for roasting the koki
water for kneading


Method

• In a mixing bowl, mix the atta and salt together. Now add to it the chopped onions, grated carrot, chopped cilantro and green chilies. Mix it all together.
• Add a little water at a time knead it to a soft dough. It should all comes together and there is no dry atta left. Make sure you do not add to much water so as to make the dough sticky. If this happen, just add a little atta to the sticky dough and knead it in.
• Divide the dough into 5 or 6 portions. Pat each portion down a little with the palm of your hand so that it is about 3 inches in diameter.
• Heat the tawa / gridle. when medium hot, roast this mound on it adding oil on both sides. Roast till it gets some light golden spots on both sides. Remove from tawa and place it back on the rolling board and roll it out to about 8 inch diameter. It should have a little less than 1/4 inch thickness. Transfer the rolled koki back to the tawa and toast this by putting 1/2 tsp of oil on each side and toast till each side is fully cooked and have nice brown spots on it.
• Remove and repeat the same for all the other balls. Serve hot with some raita and a pickle of your choice or enjoy this with a cup of plain yogurt. The picture below is of a koki without any carrot in it.

Kelewele ( Fried Pantain - Ghanaian Style )

Kelewele are a popular street food in Ghana. This are the most amazing Kelewele recipe ( spice-rubbed-deep-fried plantain pieces ). In fact they taste just like the ones you will get from the street vendors dotted along the streets of Accra, Ghana.

We used to buy our Kelewele from the vendor who sat right across the street from my school's main gates. She had this make-shift stand made of some wooden poles and tin shed for roof. In the middle of all this was this gigantic, black frying pan filled with oil sitting on firewood. In that hot oil she would have these plantain pieces, rubbed with her secret blend of spices, frying. After school all the girls would gather around waiting for her to serve us with  just-out-of-the-hot-oil Kelewele. It was a common sight to see people unable to wait for the Keleweles to cool down before popping them in their mouths thus causing their jaws to bob up and down in rapid succession all in the vain effort to prevent their mouths from burning.

Her Keleweles had the right blend of sweetness from the ripe plantains  and heat from the red chilies and ginger. For a long time I have tried to recreate those Keleweles but for some reason they just did not taste like hers. You see I always thought that the spices in which the plantain pieces marinated were made of ginger and red chilies. However I finally got the secret to perfect Keleweles from an old friend. So I went ahead and tried out the new recipe and voila these were just like the ones I remembered.

You can fry these longer so that it gets a little crispy and brown at the edges - this happens when the sugars in the plantain caramelizes ( just the way I like them ). Just make sure that your plantain is not too soft and mushy or else it will absorb too much oil. Also, remember to clean, with a slotted spoon, the bits and pieces of fried marinade floating on the surface of the hot oil after removing each batch of fried plantain or else it will stick to the new batch of plantain you put in and will look messy. My photos of them are not very picturesque but trust me they taste wonderful. Also you can cut them on a diagonal as I have done or just cut them straight, there are no hard and fast rules here. Do try this popular Ghanaian street food.


Kelewele