I’ve always loved a good pakora and bajee, but you rarely get light and whispy ones in your high street curry house as they are generally ratty doughy. My recipe here is not traditional in the sense it doesn’t use gram flour and over the years I’ve found that Doves Farm gluten free self raising flour works a treat for these tasty little snacks. Whilst Mitch and I were doing our tined fish demo together in padstow I knocked up some crab pakoras on stage which worked so well with the tinned Brixham crab.
For the pakoras
Vegetable or corn oil for deep frying
2 small onions, peeled, halved and thinly sliced
2 spring onions, trimmed and thinly sliced on the angle
2tsp ground cumin
1tsp cumin seeds
1tsp black mustard seeds
½tsp ground turmeric
1/2 tsp paprika
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
100g tin Rockfish crabmeat
60-80g Dove farm gluten free self-raising flour
Cold water to mix
For the sauce
20g Rockfish crabmeat
1 tbs good quality mayonnaise
2-3 tsp chilli sauce of your choice
1 tbs chopped coriander
How to make the pakoras
Mix the onions, spices, crabmeat and flour together and season. Stir in enough cold water to form a a batter that just drops off the end of a tablespoon. Mix all the ingredients for the sauce and put to one side.
Preheat about 8cm of oil to 160-180C in a large, thick-bottomed saucepan or electric deep-fat fryer. Using a tablespoon, drop a spoonful of the mixture into the fat as a tester.
Move around in the pan with a slotted spoon for a minute or so until golden, then transfer on to some kitchen paper.
Taste and add more salt or adjust the consistency with more water if it’s stodgy.
You can briefly cook these without colouring them too much first, so they will just need a reheat in the hot fat when you serve them.
Spoon the sauce onto serving plates and place the pakoras on top.
