Spicy Tofu Pakoras

I love the Hairy Bikers. They're adorable, in that cuddly teddy bear way. We have our own Indian version of the hairy bikers, by way of Rocky and Mayur on Highway on my Plate. One guy plays good cop (vegetarian) and one plays bad cop (eats everything). However, the one dichotomy about India is that while vegetarian food is plentiful and easy to get; vegan is not. Everything's cooked in ghee (clarified butter) for that authentic old India taste, and the default meat substitute is paneer (Indian cottage cheese).

Speaking of paneer, the hairy bikers, while touring India, had made Palak Paneer (Spinach with Cottage Cheese). Indians normally just dunk chunks of paneer inside the spinach pot and let it simmer for a while. The hairy bikers, ingeniously, coated their paneer chunks in semolina and then fried the paneer to give it a crunchy coating and then added the paneer on top.

That sounded good to me. Only, I substituted the paneer for tofu. You do have to use a firm tofu, though. Mine said Firm on the carton, but I did find it a bit soft and I hate having to handle my ingredients with extreme care.

Tofu Pakoras

Servings: 6-8 bite sized pakoras

Ingredients

• 100-150 grams of firm silken tofu
• 3/4 cup besan (chickpea flour)
• 1 green chilli
• 1 teaspoon garam masala
• 1/2 cup semolina
• Juice of half a lime
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil

To make:

• Slice your tofu into square cubes, patting them dry.
• Make a batter using the chickpea flour, chilli (finely chopped), garam masala, and lime juice. You'll need about 1/2 cup of water to bind everything into a smooth liquid batter.
• Dunk your tofu cubes into the batter and let it marinate for 30 minutes or so.
• Heat oil in a pan.
• Dunk the marinated tofu into a plate of semolina, ensuring that the cubes have a decent amount of batter on them firstly, and then are completely coated in semolina.
• Fry till golden brown.
• Serve with more lashings of lime, and a mint or chilli chutney.