Chicken Pakoda/Pakora from left over chicken

Pakoda or pakora is a popular snack item in India. It involves frying batter coated vegetables in oil. The batter is primarily made from chickpea/besan flour. There are several varities of pakoda like onion, cauliflower , spinach etc. It is also a popular street food in Chennai. You can see hot pakodas being made right in front of your eyes in a big kadai/wok outside every bakery and sweet stall. This is a very simple snack recipe that can be made using left over chicken. I had about 150 gms of chicken left over from last week. I wanted to use it up immediately and was not in a mood to make gravy as dinner was already planned. The idea of making pakoras struck me when i bumped across a cooking show in TV.Chicken pakoda/pakora is quite uncommon unlike onion pakodas but they make a great starter. Plus ,it’s a great way to use up left over chicken and can be made in a jiffy.

Required Ingredients:

• Chicken chunks-125 gms
• Onion-1
• Green chilli-1
• Curry leaves-10 to 15
• Besan/chickpea flour-5 tbsp
• Corn flour-1 tsp
• Semolina/rava-1 tbsp
• Lemon juice-1 tsp
• Turmeric powder-1/2 tsp
• Red chilli powder-1 tsp
• Coriander seed/dhaniya powder-1 tsp
• Garam Masala-1 tsp
• Salt-As required
• Oil-To fry

Method:

Pressure cook left over chicken pieces for 10-15 minutes such that they don’t get fully cooked. This is to cut the flesh off the bones to get chunks of chicken. This step can be skipped if you have a good knife that can cut meat or if you have boneless chicken.

Once cooked, cut the flesh off the bones to get medium-sized chunks.

In a mixing bowl, add chicken chunks, sliced onions, curry leaves, green chillies, spices, salt, lemon juice and mix well.

Leave it aside for 15-20 minutes.

Then, add besan , corn flour and semolina and mix well such that the chicken gets uniformly coated with batter. You can add water if it looks dry.

Heat oil in a pan/kadai and add the batter coated chicken chunks. Fry until golden  brown. Make sure to turn over so that both sides get browned evenly.

Serve hot with mint chutney or tomato ketchup

Notes:

• The left over chicken pieces stocked up in my refrigerator was already marinated with turmeric, red chilli powder and ginger garlic paste. Hence, i did not add ginger garlic paste. Modify the recipe accordingly.
• If you are using fresh chicken chunks you can marinate and refrigerate them for 20-30 minutes prior to adding besan flour.
• You can use rice flour instead of semolina.