Lifestyle Desk: The craving for hot tea and crunchy pakodas increases during the rainy season. Be it onion, potato, spinach or chilli pakodas, everyone likes their taste amid the rain showers. However, while making pakodas at home, there is often a complaint that they do not become crispy from outside and become soft quickly after frying. Sometimes the pakodas absorb more oil than required. If this happens to you too, then the reason may not be the recipe, but the method of making pakodas.
Actually, to make crispy pakodas, the consistency of the batter, temperature of the oil and the right method of frying matters a lot. By taking care of some small things, pakodas which remain crispy for a long time can be made at home.
While preparing the batter for pakodas, first pay attention to its consistency. Too thin a batter will not give proper coating to the pakodas and they may absorb too much oil. At the same time, too thick batter can make the pakodas heavy and less crispy. By slowly adding water to the gram flour, prepare a batter that sticks well to the vegetables. It is better to just mix the batter well rather than overbeat it.
If you want to make the pakodas more crispy, you can mix a small amount of rice flour with gram flour. This gives a good crunch to the outer layer of the pakodas. Apart from this, adding a pinch of baking soda in the batter can also make the pakodas light, but do not keep its quantity too much.
A major reason for pakodas becoming soft or too oily is the oil not being at the right temperature. If pakodas are put in very cold oil, they may absorb more oil. On the other hand, in very hot oil, the pakodas will brown quickly on the outside, but will not cook properly from the inside. Therefore, heat the oil on medium to medium-high flame and check the temperature by dropping a small drop of the batter. If it slowly rises to the top and starts frying, the oil is ready.
After the oil is heated, putting too many pakodas in the pan at once causes the temperature of the oil to suddenly drop. Due to this, the pakodas may absorb more oil instead of becoming crunchy. So fry the pakodas in small batches and keep some space between them, so that they can be fried evenly from all sides.
If you want to keep the pakodas crisp for a long time, you can try the trick of frying them twice. For the first time, fry the pakodas until they become light golden and take them out. After some time, heat the oil again and fry the pakodas again for some time. This makes the outer layer more crispy.
Avoid keeping the pakodas in a closed container or covered vessel immediately after frying. The steam from hot pakodas can soften their crispy layer. Keep them on a wire rack or a platform with holes for some time, so that excess oil and steam can drain out. After this, serve it with hot tea. Next time you feel like making pakodas in the rain, pay attention not only to the ingredients but also to the consistency of the batter, temperature of the oil and the method of frying. With these easy tricks, even homemade pakodas can have market-like crunch and taste.
