
- ¾ cup besan
- ½ teaspoon red chili powder
- ¾ to ½ teaspoon ajwain ( carom seeds)
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 2 to 3 tablespoons rice flour or cornstarch
- ¼ teaspoon turmeric
Bread: You can use any bread of your choice except for soft milk bread. Since the bread is coated with batter and fried the bread pakoras will not absorb oil even with fresh bread.
If you want to fry these on a griddle or bake then use dense slices of bread that do not have large pores. Bread with larger pores will soak up the batter and won’t cook well with these methods.
Potatoes: The street style bread pakoras have a filling made with boiled potatoes. On occasions I also add some mixed veggies like peas, carrots and even some paneer.
Cheese: My kids love some mozzarella cheese in the filling. You can add tiny cubes of the cheese. Ensure you use them at room temperature so they melt when the pakoras are fried.
Spices: Garam masala, turmeric and red chilli powder are the spices used for the potato filling. For the batter, carom seeds (ajwain) are used similar to the other pakora recipes. You can adjust all of these spices to suit your taste.
Gram flour is the key ingredient used to make any pakoras. Choose good quality fine or coarse besan. Using coarse besan gives an extra crunch to the deep fried bread pakoras.
Cornstarch or rice flour is used to give a crisp texture to your bread fritters. If you do not have both then you may simply skip it.
Amchur or lemon juice: The street style bread pakoras have amchur (dried mango powder) added to the filling. If you do not have it you can squeeze some lemon juice or simply skip them.