Kadhi Pakora
Kadhi Pakora is one the most delicious and creamy preparations and easily can be lumped into comfort dishes to make during cold winter months because it is best served hot or warm. I really love to make it because its quick and hardly demands extra ingredients. You would find most of the ingredients in an Indian household.
But, in case if you do not have everything on hand, you can always plan ahead to make it. It has slight tanginess from the yogurt and lemon and creaminess from the yogurt and chickpea flour. By the way chickpea flour is also gluten free.
Let’s talk about how it is prepared.
There are 2 main components to this dish.
- Making pakoras/fritters
- Making the yogurt based sauce
- Tempering it – tadka or vaghar
You can make pakoras from scratch, they super easy and delicious on its own. At times, when I make onions pakoras, I will make extra so that I do not have to fry anything again. They can be stored in the refrigerator and you can easily make Kadhi Pakora and not worry about putting a pot of oil on stove.
Another way, I often make pakoras when I am not feeling like frying, is in ebleskiver pan. That way, they take less oil and you can have less guilt in eating them. It works perfectly in this recipe.
The sauce – kadhi, is made with yogurt and chickpea flour. Its similar to the Gujarati style Kadhi I have shared here.
The only major difference is the color due to turmeric and red chili powder being added to punjabi kadhi and sugar is not added so it has spicy and tangy flavors. Gujarati Kadhi is sweet, spicy and tangy at the same time.
I love both variations. 🙂
The tempering can be done at the end, once the kadhi is prepared or you can start the process of making kadhi with tempering. Either ways, it works.
The Kadhi Pakora taste great with steamed basmati rice or chapatis. I usually serve it with chapatis and then eat leftovers with rice. The flavors get so intense with leftovers. This dish is easily gluten free, if you skip the asafetida. Asafetida or hing is not gluten free. So, please skip it and you have a gluten free version.
Punjabi Kadhi Pakora
Ingredients
- 1 cup Chickpea flour or besan
- 2 tsp red chili powder
- 1/2 tsp turmeric powder
- Pinch of baking soda
- Salt to taste
- ½ onion finely chopped
- Oil for frying
- The yogurt gravy – Kadhi
- 1/2 cup yogurt
- 3 tbsp chickpea flour or besan
- 3 tbsp oil
- 1 tsp cumin seeds
- 1/2 tsp mustard seeds
- Pinch of asafetida do not use if making it gluten free
- ½ onion finely chopped
- 1-2 whole red chilies
- 1 tsp Red chili powder
- 1 tsp turmeric powder
- Salt to taste
- 2 tsp kasuri methi dried fenugreek leaves optional
- Juice from ½ a lemon
- Cilantro leaves to garnish
Instructions
- Preheat oil in a pot for frying pakoras.
- Take chickpea flour in a small mixing bowl, add the dry ingredients and finely chopped onions, and add some water (about ¼ cup) to make batter of thick consistency. Start with little water then add more if you need more after mixing it. The consistency is not too thick and not runny.
- Drop dollops of batter with a spoon or hands in the hot oil and fry the pakoras/fritters until golden and crispy on medium heat. They should be cooked on medium heat so that they get cooked from inside too. Remove them on absorbent paper.
- In a mixing glass, add yogurt and chickpea flour and whisk it until it looks smooth and there are no lumps in them.
- Meanwhile, in another pan heat up some oil at slow to medium heat; add cumin seeds and mustard seeds. Let them crackle and then add asafetida if you have some on hand, if you do not have its okay. Also, if you want to make it gluten free then please do not use asafetida. Add some whole red chilies to it. And, immediately add the whisked yogurt mix. Followed by 1 ½ of cups of water. Mix it well.
- Add red chili and turmeric powder, salt to taste. Let it cook for few minutes and keep stirring it once in a while. Add crushed dried fenugreek leaves, totally optional. If the gravy thickens up too much, then you can add some more water. It should be thick and saucy. As it cools down, it does thicken up more.
- Keep the flame slow. Add the fritters and let it cook for couple more minutes. If you are not ready to serve it immediately then add fritters only before 10-15 minutes of serving. They will get too soggy and soak up the kadhi.
- Add some lemon juice and garnish it with cilantro leaves.
- Serve it hot with Basmati rice, chapati or roti.
Notes
XO, Devangi
This is an old post updated with new pictures.
P.S. do check out Gujarati Kadhi recipe!