Paneer Pakora Recipe - Swasthi's Recipes (2024)

FAQs

Can you use plain flour instead of gram flour for pakora? ›

Traditionally, pakoras, or pakodas, are made using gram flour (besan) as the primary ingredient for the batter. Gram flour gives pakoras a distinctive flavor, texture, and golden color when fried. However, it's possible to make pakoras using maida (all-purpose flour), although the texture and taste will be different.

Make batter: Place chickpea flour in a bowl with the spices (turmeric, cumin, coriander, fenugreek, chilli). Slow whisk in the water. Mix in Vegetables: Add potato, cauliflower, onion, ginger, chilli and coriander. Mix well with a wooden spoon.

Skinned small black chickpeas are ground finely or coarsely to make gram flour also known as besan. Paneer is fresh non-melting Indian cottage cheese made by curdling milk with a food acid. So no prizes for guessing that paneer pakora is a deep fried fritter made with paneer and gram flour.

If you are allergic to gram flour, you may use wheat flour. But the texture will be very different. Rice flour is more commonly used in South India for pakora. It gives a great crunch and helps to reduce the pakora from soaking up oil.

The compound X is baking soda, a constituent of baking powder. Its chemical name is sodium hydrogen carbonate and its formula is NaHCO3.

Baking soda, just like cakes, makes the pakoras light and fluffly. I personally dont add baking soda to any pakora batter. The trick is to make small batches of batter and deep fry.

Pakora (pronounced [pəˈkɔːɽa]) is a fritter originating from the Indian subcontinent. They are sold by street vendors and served in restaurants in South Asia. It consists of items, often vegetables such as potatoes and onions, coated in seasoned gram flour batter and deep fried.

Adding baking soda helps the pakoda to have a soft texture. Adding hot oil in the batter: in the gram flour batter, you can also add 1 or 2 teaspoons of oil. This makes the onion pakoda crisp and it absorbs less oil while frying. Frying temperature: The temperature of the oil has to be correct while frying.

*Traditionally, chickpea flour or besan along with spices and ice water is used to make the batter for pakoda. But adding a bit of rice flour helps make the pakodas light and crispy as then they won't soak as much oil when deep-fried.

However, try adding some rice flour to your batter the next time you plan to make them. Rice flour helps make the pakoras crispy as it does not soak up as much oil as gram flour. The next thing to keep in mind while preparing the batter is to use cold water. Since the batter is cold, it will not absorb too much oil.

What is paneer called in America? ›

Although many Indians translate "paneer" into "cottage cheese", cottage cheese is made using rennet extracted from the stomach of ruminants, and cow's skim milk. Queso blanco or queso fresco are often recommended as substitutes in the Americas and Spain as they are more commercially available in many American markets.

The paneer pakora is deep fried. Any food that is deep fried is not suitable for healthy living. Your fat levels increase as deep frying increases oil absorption. Also when you use the same oil again for deep frying then smoking point decreases which leads to the development of blue smoke which is not good for health.

Paneer pakora is a popular evening snack from North Indian cuisine. It is made by batter frying Indian cottage cheese aka paneer. These turn out delicious and mildly spicy. Paneer pakora are usually served with green chutney or red chilli chutney.

You can substitute the gram flour for plain/all purpose flour if you would prefer and they would work just as well, but I like the interesting 'nutty' taste of the gram flour.

You can usually substitute half the amount of plain flour in a recipe for chickpea flour. But, be warned, it can suck up a lot of moisture, so it may not be right for every recipe – especially if you're making a cake or bread.

Chickpea flour, also known as gram flour or besan, is a gluten-free alternative to all purpose flour. It is made from ground chickpeas and has a nutty flavor. When using chickpea flour in baking, it is important to note that it does not have the same binding properties as all purpose flour.

Chickpea flour and gram flour are actually the same thing, just known by different names in different regions. Both terms refer to a flour made from ground chickpeas, and are commonly used in Indian, Pakistani, and Bangladeshi cuisines. In some other parts of the world, it is also known as garbanzo flour or besan.