Bread Pakora - Tea time Snack Recipe

BREAD PAKORA
(Rainy day Vegan Snack Recipe)

Cooking time: 20 minutes                                                                                  Serves: 6



Hello everyone. Hope you all are doing good! Let me start today's post with a question. What is your favourite season? Winter?? ummm Summer?? or Spring?? Oh wait it's Autumn isn't it?? 
                     Well I am quite certain very few would name Rainy season as their favourite. Why this cruelty? To be frank there are lots of reasons. You went for shopping and forgot your umbrella and it started raining. Gosh!! What a pain! You are wearing your favourite pair of shoes and suddenly its raining. Nightmare isn't it? You love to wear white... Oh wait it might rain.. Let's chuck away the thought. Who loves a gloomy rainy day??  Nobody probably.. Poor rain. 
                     Now let's look at some bright (ummm not sunny!!) sides of the rainy day. Well the smell of the earth right when the rain hits the ground? Not bad uh? We might not love rainy season but I am dead sure the trees eagerly wait for the entire year for the rains to come. And if you ask me why I love this season well I have just one answer! Steaming hot pakoras with a cup of Tea on a gloomy rainy evening! Trust me on this it's heavenly. And hence in this post I am going to share my boyfriend's mother's recipe of Bread Pakora. She makes it for us especially on rainy days. Bread pakora, Darjeeling tea and lots of gossips and stories. Our evening is sorted!! So lets see how its made. 

INGREDIENTS:
  1. Bread slices (12) 
  2. Boiled potatoes (4 large potatoes)
  3. Chopped onion (1 large onion)
  4. Chopped green chillies (2-3 green chillies)
  5. Mustard seeds
  6. Curry leaves (10-12)
  7. Turmeric powder
  8. Salt
  9. Sugar
  10. Crushed peanuts
  11. Oil


METHOD:
  1. Boil and mash the potatoes.
  2. In a pan add 2 tablespoon of oil. To the hot oil add 1 teaspoon of mustard seeds. Let it pop.
  3. To this add chopped onion. Cook for 2 minutes. 
  4. Add in the curry leaves and saute for a minute.
  5. Add a pinch of turmeric powder and fry. 
  6. To this masala mix add the mashed potatoes and mix everything well.
  7. Add in salt and sugar (optional) as per your taste.
  8. Finally add the roughly crushed peanuts. Mix well and the potato mixture is ready.
  9. Cut the sides of the bread. 
  10. Dip the bread in water, squeeze out the water and add a spoonful of potato mixture in the middle of the bread. Properly join the edges of the bread in the middle and apply pressure with your hand to form a flat oval shape (Refer the video for this step. It's not as tricky as it sounds.) 
  11. Keep in the refrigerator for 15-30 minutes.
  12. Fry these pakoras on medium flame until golden brown.
  13. Sprinkle some chaat masala on top and serve the hot bread pakoras with some ketchup or coriander chutney (Refer my blog for the Coriander Chutney recipe).
  14. Enjoy the pakoras with some tea or coffee on a rainy evening. Happy Rains!! 


NOTES:
  1. The above potato mixture is an authentic South Indian Style recipe. It's vegan and quite tasty.
  2. You can add other vegetables in the potato mixture. If you prefer you can even add non-veg stuffs (diced chicken, fish, boiled egg, pork). 
  3. Making the pakora may sound a little tricky but is actually easy. The bread is dipped in water to make it moist and then additional water is squeezed out. Care should be taken while squeezing out the water, making sure the bread don't break. Then the mixture is added in between the moist bread, don't add too much or too little mixture. Carefully bring in all the edges of the bread together and give it a desired shape. Make sure the mix don't come out of the bread covering. Refer the video for this step.
  4. Although the recipe calls for using bread after cutting the brown hard sides, I have tried the recipe along the sides of the bread and to be frank its actually not that difficult to make and tastes quite the same.
  5. After making the pakoras you can store in the refrigerator for upto 1 day and fry when your guests arrive.
  6. There is no need to deep fry these. Bread tends to absorb lot of oil. Shallow fry in oil and add additional oil if required. Less oil = less crispy but more healthy. Use oil according to your health requirement.

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