Chicken Pakora
Boneless chicken thigh marinated with spices and deep-fried: a delicious snack with beer or tea!
- Cooking time40 minutes
- Calories416kcal
Chicken pakoras are loved all over South Asia in various forms as a snack or as an accompaniment to a meal. Our intention with this video was to not only create a reliable recipe for the kind of chicken pakora we like, but to also put together a general framework for chicken pakora that you can adapt to your liking. With that idea in mind, we split up the recipe into the following six steps that should help you decide what choices to make to produce the type of pakora that you are trying to make on a given day.
- Selecting the right kind of meat
- Seasoning
- Flavouring choices
- Liquid base
- Binding agent
- Frying
We have also included tips for cooking them in batches and putting them away for a rainy day.
Ingredients
- 500 g boneless chicken thigh (6-cm pieces)
- 25 g onions (finely chopped)
- 5 g ginger (finely chopped)
- 5 g garlic (finely chopped)
- 5 g coriander leaves (finely chopped)
- 10 g green chillies (finely chopped)
- 10 g salt
- 10 g sugar
- 1 tsp pepper
- ½ tsp MSG
- 2 tsp kashmiri red chilli powder
- 1 tsp red chilli powder
- ½ tsp gorom moshla
- ½ tsp kasuri methi powder
- 80 g yoghurt
- 1 egg
- 38 g cornstarch
- 12 g rice flour
- vegetable oil for deep-frying
Method
- Marinate the chicken with all the ingredients except egg, cornstarch and rice flour. From here, you can proceed to the next stage immediately, or keep the chicken in the fridge until you are ready to fry!
- Just before frying, mix in an egg, and the cornstarch and rice flour (they equal 50 g in weight and are in the ratio 3:1). If your mixture is too runny, you may have to increase the flours a little in the given proportion.
- Drop each piece of chicken with a little mixture attached into 150°C oil. Fry on medium-low heat for about 6 minutes. Don't raise the heat or the chicken won't cook through. Drain over paper towels.
- You can eat these immediately, but if you want the pakoras extra-crisp, refry them in 180°C oil on high heat.
- Serve hot.
[Note: This is the version of chicken pakora we went with, on the day we filmed our video. When we cook it again, we may (and will) choose from the various other options available based on our mood.]