We eat curries a lot – usually at least once a week and my children have loved curries from quite small. My husband is great at cooking these from scratch and my contribution is usually a couple of side dishes, one of which is always these bhajis. The base recipe came from a friend (her family recipe) and I’ve just, over time, come to use my own ratio of spices and switch it from a simple onion recipe to incorporating spring onions and shallots.
Notes
Makes about 10-12 bhajis
Equipment
- Smallish, high sided saucepan for deep fat frying or a deep fat fryer
- Bowl
Ingredients
- Gram flour – 80g
- Rice flour – 40g
- Spring onions – about 6
- Shallots – about 6
- Lemon juice – 1 dessert spoon
- Melted butter (or ghee if you have this) – 25g
- Bicarbonate of soda – 1 teaspoon
- Garam masala – 2 teaspoons
- Cumin seeds – 1 teaspoon
- Fresh chopped chilli or chilli flakes – 1 teaspoon
- Turmeric – 1/2 teaspoon
- Garlic – 1 clove, crushed
- Salt – 1/2 teaspoon
- optional: fresh coriander finely chopped – about a tablespoon-full’s worth
- Water – enough to bind
- Rapeseed oil (or your choice of oil) for deep-fat frying
Method
- Cut the spring onions and shallots into very fine slices, then cut these into about 1 – 2 cm shards
- Put both flours, the bicarb and the spices and salt into a large bowl
- Mix the onions and shallots into the dry mix and ensure it is covered
- Add the lemon juice, the butter (or ghee) and one or two tablespoons of water to bring it together – it will be quite a sticky batter but you do not want it at all runny
- Leave it to rest while you warm up the oil over a medium heat
- Test the temperature of the oil by dropping in a tiny bit of the mix. It should start to go brown within about 20 – 30 seconds
- Take a dessert spoon size blob of the mix and gently and carefully drop it into the oil – repeat with a couple more (leave enough space in the oil for the bhajis to move about a bit)
- Turn the bhajis while they cook to ensure they are browned all over
- Cook for about three minutes each, and take them out when they are a nice medium brown all over
- You will need to fry these in batches to do them all
- Dry them on kitchen paper to catch the excess oil
Ink Sugar Spice - Lynn Clark 