From the French beignets to the Indian pakora, fritters make it to the shortlist of favourite snack foods in all cuisines. Vegetable, cheese, meats, sweet or savoury fritters can be given with a healthy touch by adding nutritious ingredients. Here are my favourite fritter recipes – Parvathy Menon
Curd-Rice Fritters
(2 servings)
Ingredients
- 2 cups soft cooked rice
- 1 cup yoghurt
- 1 tsp mustard seeds
- ½ cup chopped carrot, beans, onion mix
- 6 broken cashews
- 1 pinch asafoetida
- 1 finely chopped green chilly
- Oil for frying and mixing
- 1 handful coriander leaves
For coating
- 2 tbsp maida
- 4 tsp powdered urad dal
- 1 tbsp rice flour
Preparation guide
- In a large bowl, mix cooked rice, lump-free yoghurt, salt and coriander leaves.
- Heat 1 tbsp oil, fry broken cashew nuts until golden. Take them out and keep aside.
- In the same oil, add mustard seeds, asafoetida and chopped green chilli. Then add in the vegetables and salt. Fry for two minutes, add the fried cashews and a few fried curry leaves. Remove from flame.
- Mix it with the prepared curd rice.
- Cool in the refrigerator for 15 minutes.
- For the coating, mix refined flour with 1/4th cup of water to make a lump-free batter. Mix powdered urad dal and rice flour in a bowl.
- Make lemon-sized balls of curd-rice. Roll the balls in the batter first, drain well and then coat with the urad dal mix.
- Deep fry in medium hot oil until golden brown. Don’t fry too much as the overly heated yoghurt will make fritters soft.
Serve with coconut chutney.
Health benefit. Yogurt aids digestion as the probiotics in it act as a mild laxative. It also builds immunity.
Other fritter recipes: