Rainy days. Hot milky tea. Crispy Vegetable Pakoras with coriander chutney. Things foodie dreams are made of. 

If there’s one thing that I love dunking in sauce it has to be these Vegetable Pakoras. They’re absolutely moreish and whenever I make a batch they disappear hot off the plate, especially when served with my Coriander Chutney. The two are firm favourites within my own and extended family.

I personally find slicing vegetables for pakoras a real chore but not when I have the help of my Magimix 4200XL food processor. If you hate slicing vegetables using a knife, you NEED one of these in your life. It takes about 7 seconds to grate an entire carrot. I kid you not! Making pakoras becomes enjoyable rather than tedious when you have a machine like this to assist you. It’s not only great for slicing but is also great for kneading breads and making cake batter too, so a very very versatile machine.

I always add onions and potatoes to my pakoras and use a selection of other vegetables depending on what I have at home. Anything goes, including peppers, carrots, cabbage, spinach and anything else I can find in my fridge. Rice flour adds a crispiness to the pakoras that you don’t get without it, so if possible try to use this. If you’re unable to source rice flour just replace it with self raising flour or plain flour.

Pakoras are great for parties and gatherings, perfect for sharing when you plan on entertaining. Because they’re so easy to whip up you don’t need to spend ages making them beforehand, unlike samosas. This recipe is one of my go to recipes when I have unexpected guests and it never fails me!

Makes – 30 – 35 Pakoras

You will need: for Vegetable Pakoras

3 small onions
2 medium carrots
2 large potatoes
1/4 bunch fresh coriander
5 – 7 green chillies (adjust to taste)
2 tsp cumin seeds
2 tsp coriander seeds
130g frozen spinach (defrosted)
1.5 chilli flakes
2 cups of chickpea/besan flour
1/2 cup of self raising flour
1/3 cup of rice flour
2 – 2.5 tsp salt (adjust to taste)
water as needed
oil for frying

Method:

Before you start peel and top/tail the onions, carrots and potatoes.

Defrost the frozen spinach in the microwave till thawed.

Rinse the coriander and green chillies.

To slice the onions attach the slicing disc (top right photo).

Cut your peeled onions into halves (or quarters depending on how big they are) and feed the onions through the tube on the lid.

Use the auto button to operate the processor and watch the onions magically slice!

Next attach the larger grating disc (there are two, one fine, one large).

Feed the carrots through the tube in the top and do the same for the potatoes – cut the potatoes into smaller pieces if you need to before feeding them through the tube.

The bottom right photo shows the leftover bits of potato and carrot, I simply sliced these with a knife and added to the rest of the shredded, you can add or discard them.

It’s not essential to rinse the shredded vegetables but I like to remove the starch from the potatoes so I rinse them in a sieve and drain.

Roughly chop the coriander before placing it into the smallest bowl, this is to stop the coriander wrapping itself around the centre of the blade.

Place the coriander and 5 green chillies into the processor along with 2 tsp cumin seeds and 2 tsp coriander seeds.

Securely attach the lid (it’s important the lid is correctly attached as the machine won’t work if it isn’t) and blitz until fine (top right photo).

Place the shredded vegetables in a large bowl.

Defrost and squeeze out as much liquid as possible from the frozen spinach.

Add the spinach to the bowl along with the blitzed coriander and chilli mix, 1.5 tsp chilli flakes and 2 cups of chickpea flour….

….1/2 cup of self raising flour, 1/3 cup of rice flour and 2 – 2.5 tsp salt (adjust to your taste).

Do not add any water at this stage, simply mix the shredded veg with the added flours as in the bottom right photo.

Slowly add water to the mix, only adding as much as is needed to hold the batter together, as shown in bottom left photo.

Heat oil in a large wok.

Once the oil is hot carefully drop small balls of the batter into the oil and fry over a medium high flame. Make sure the outside of the pakoras don’t brown too quickly as otherwise the inside of the pakoras will still be raw.

Fry for several minutes on one side, then flip them over and fry over on the other side. The pakoras are done when golden brown and cripsy 

Serve the hot pakoras with a condiment of your choice like this Coriander Chutney which is absolutely delicious, it even tastes good drizzled onto cheese and toast. Just saying, lol, enjoy!