Why Beer-Battered Bhaji Is The Ultimate Fusion Snack You Need to Try Now
Biscuit crumbs and cornflakes, chickpea flour and cornstarch, peanuts, sesame seeds, egg washes—for centuries, culinary science has relentlessly striven to perfect the crunch of the fry coating.
Every culture has a different way of crispening up their favourite vegetable or meat.
Take for example, the Japanese technique of tempura: a wafer light coating of batter made with eggs, ice water, flour and baking soda. It has almost set a gold standard for lightness and crunchiness among batters, while also preserving the true flavour of the meat.
The Indian counterpart of Tempura is Bhaji: fritters encased in a chickpea flour batter. Bhajis are the cornerstone of Indian street food; every Indian state has their specific version of it.
Given their iconic status, and that fried food tastes the best, here is a list of fritters that combine the nostalgia of your favourite fried food with a touch of modernity.
Beer Batter Onion Bhajis
If there were ever to be an official document listing your guilty pleasures in decreasing order of intensity of guilt, onion bhajis would rank pretty high for most.
After all, what is not to like about devilishly crunchy fritters with a sweet, soft centre and caramelised tendrils?
But what is better than a traditional bhaji? It is onion Bhajis made with beer batter.
Simply switch out the chickpea flour with all-purpose flour, baking powder and a bit of salt. Then add cold beer to the dry ingredients and mix the batter well. The cold beer helps to make the batter as light as air. But make sure your batter has enough fluidity so that the coating is as thin as possible.
Champagne Battered Shrimp
This shrimp fry recipe complements the fresh seafood taste of shrimp with an uberlight coating of champagne batter.
While the traditional tempura batter only adds flour and water to achieve the optimum crisp on the shrimp, champagne incorporates more air into the batter because of its high fizz content.
The air bubbles in the fizz make the batter imperceptibly thin, leaving you with sonorously crunchy shrimp tempura.
Banana Fritters With A Rum Batter
Banana fritters are your one-stop fix for all your sugar cravings.
No matter your age, there is something genuinely comforting about digging your teeth into custardy banana fritters. Yet, if you want to inflate the appeal of banana fritter to an adult audience, you can make the fritters by adding a splash of rum to the batter of milk, flour, eggs and baking powder. The rum adds a woody, spicy note to the otherwise cloyingly sweet stuff.
Bottle Gourd Fritters
Among the roster of homemade fritters, bottle gourd fritters ‘take the cake’ in terms of popularity. Bottle gourd is readily available around the country throughout the year. Moreover, unlike zucchini or red cabbage, they also don’t burn a hole in your pocket.
But if you are looking to upgrade your culinary prowess a tad bit more, you can simply flavour the batter with a solution of gin and tonic. The gin and tonic adds effervescence to your batter, making it light, fluffy and crunchy.
You can also use gin and tonic for other freshwater and seafood fries. Since the batter only takes about a minute to fry completely, it ensures the meat doesn’t get overcooked inside.
Potato Fritters With Vodka
One could argue that potato in any shape or form is the tastiest vegetable. You won’t find many who do not like how potatoes taste. Combine it with hot oil, and you get the one match that truly timeless.
If you want to go another step further, then you can infuse your potato fritters with vodka.
Vodka, which is derived from potatoes, has a natural affinity towards the vegetable. Add a splash of vodka to your potato fries batter to make them airy and crispy, but make sure to sprinkle a generous splash of lemon juice and a sprinkle of salt, pepper and lemon zest seasoning to balance out the starchiness of the potato with potato combination.
