Health for life

You may surprised to see the name soft pakodas, yep we make two types of pakodas one is extremely crispy pakodas and the another one is soft pakodas. Soft pakodas aka medhu pakodas will have baking soda  in their pakoda batter while we add more rice flour but not baking soda in crispy pakodas batter, apart from it you can add any veggies or greens in these both pakodas. Inspired by my moms medhu pakodas,I tried my hands in making this medhu pakodas few days back, she usually prepare her pakodas just with onions and coriander leaves, but i prepared mine with finely chopped Amaranth leaves. Seriously kids wont mind having deep fried fritters with watever they are prepared.Obviously if my kids hate any veggies or greens, ill try to feed them either by adding in pakoras or in vadas.

Coming to this pakoras, these green pakoras is my last post for this weeks blogging marathon, pakoras are my favourite street foods, as a kid i always loved to munch these crispy beauties. Needless to say, these pakoras are my kids favourite too, since i chosed Kids delight-street foods as this weeks theme of blogging marathon am posting this crispy pakodas today.Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing BM#26.Sending to my own event Healthy Diet-Go green guest hosted by Amurta.



2cups Amaranth leaves or any greens (chopped finely)
1no Onion (big & chopped finely)
2tbsp Corn flour
1/4tsp Baking soda
1/2cup Gram flour
1tsp Ginger(grated)
1/4cup Rice flour
2nos Green chillies (chopped)
1/2tsp Fennel seeds
Chopped coriander leaves
Curry leaves
Salt
Oil for deep frying

Take the finely chopped amaranth leaves,chopped onions, cornflour, gram flour,baking soda, rice flour,grated ginger, chopped green chillies, fennel seeds,curry leaves and chopped coriander leaves with enough salt.

Mix everything well,springle some water and turn everything as a thick paste.

Heat oil for deep frying.

Make small balls from the thick paste, drop gently to the hot oil, fry until they turns crispy and golden brown.

Drain the excess of oil with a paper towel.

Enjoy hot with a cup of coffee..

We dont get varieties of greens as like India here, but eventhough we manage to add greens atleast twice or once a week in our menu. My recent trip to Indian grocery was simply awesome, i picked super fresh amaranth leaves from there which is quite rare here,eventhough we get this green quite often. But the vendor brought these super fresh greens from a newly arrived cargo parcel, immediately i picked a huge bunch of this green happily.

Back home, i prepared those super fresh greens as a quick stir fry with yellow moongdal along with usual spices to enjoy the freshness of amaranth leaves. This stir fry makes me nostalgic, i still remember my grandma used to cook super fresh greens which she plucked few minutes before from her backyard as simple stir fry with lentils like toor dal,channadal and moongdal. She never stopped feeding us with her super fresh greens eventhough i dont like them that much when i was young. Seriously i miss our Indian greens here and am craving for some gongura now which is quite a hard task for us to get here.Sending to Srivallis Side dish Mela.


1small bunch Amaranth leaves (cleaned & chopped)
4tbsp Yellow moongdal
1no Onion(big & chopped)
2nos Green chillies(slit opened)
1tsp Mustard seeds+urad dal
1nos Dry red chillies
3tbsp Grated coconut
Salt
Oil

Soak the yellow moongdal for half an hour.

Heat enough oil,let splutters the mustard seeds, urad dal and fry the dry red chilly.

Add now the chopped onions,slit opened green chillies,curry leaves,cook until the onions turns transculent.

Add the soaked moongdal,cook for few minutes in simmer along with salt.

Finally add the chopped amaranth leaves, sauté for few minutes in medium.Dont overcook the greens.

Now add the grated coconut to the cooked greens and put off the stove.

Serve warm as side dish.