Twinkling lights, delicious food, festive clothes, decked-up homes, and, most importantly, getting together with your loved ones is what Diwali is all about. The food spread for Diwali is dominated by snacks, and pakoda is one of the all-time favorite Diwali savory snacks.
Pakoda is a crispy Indian fritter, traditionally made with veggies like onions, potatoes, and spinach coated in a batter of lentil flour with spices. For our Plant-Based Whole30 Pakoda, we used a batter of mung beans, a type of lentil widely used in Indian cuisine. This fusion recipe uses traditional pakoda ingredients, cooked more conveniently in a waffle maker. Serve it with green chutney or Whole30-compatible ketchup and a hot cup of chai.
Some plant-based main courses that you can make for Diwali are tofu tikka masala or plant-based keema.
Tips and Tricks:
- Yellow mung beans are mung beans that have their skin removed or hulled. Mung beans are a good source of plant-based protein. Soaking the mung beans makes them easier to digest and also grind into a better.
- Carom seeds, also known as ajwain, are highly fragrant seeds with bitter notes and a strong flavor used in Indian cooking. They contain thymol, which can aid in digestion.
- Do not use excess water while blending the soaked mung beans, as that will make the batter too thin. If your batter is thin, you can add 1-2 Tbsp of tapioca flour to thicken it
- With 1 cup of mung beans, you can make batter for four large waffles. Ingredients can be halved to make two large waffles instead
Ingredients
- 1 cup yellow mung beans
- 1 serrano pepper
- 1 in piece ginger root
- 1 small onion
- 1/2 small zucchini
- 1 cup spinach
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- 1/2 tsp carrom seeds optional
- 1.5 tsp salt
- cooking oil spray
Equipment
- Waffle iron
Instructions
- SOAK mung beans in water for 1 hour. Discard the water after the soaking period is done.
- CHOP onions and spinach.
- GRATE zucchini, then press the grated zucchini between your palms to drain the water from it.
- BLEND soaked mung beans along with the serrano pepper and ginger root. You can add a few teaspoons of water to make blending easier, but do not add excess water. Keep the consistency of the batter slightly coarse.
- MIX batter with cumin powder, carrom seeds, and salt.
- ADD chopped onions, chopped spinach, and grated zucchini to the batter and mix.
- HEAT a waffle maker and spray both sides with oil.
- COOK approximately 1/4 of the batter in the waffle maker for 10 minutes to get one large waffle. Continue to make additional waffles till all the batter is used.
- CUT waffles into 4 wedges and serve with green chutney or Whole30 compatible ketchup.
