Pakora () is a spiced fritter originating from the

Indian subcontinent The Indian subcontinent is a list of the physiographic regions of the world, physiographical region in United Nations geoscheme for Asia#Southern Asia, Southern Asia. It is situated on the Indian Plate, projecting southwards into the Indian O ...

. They are sold by street vendors and served in restaurants in

South Asia South Asia is the southern subregion of Asia, which is defined in both geographical Geography (from Greek: , ''geographia''. Combination of Greek words ‘Geo’ (The Earth) and ‘Graphien’ (to describe), literally "earth descr ...

and UK. It consists of items, often vegetables such as potatoes and onions, coated in seasoned

gram flour Gram flour or kadala maavu is a pulse flour made from a variety of ground chickpea called Bengal gram or ''kaala chana''. It is a staple ingredient in the cuisine of the Indian subcontinent, including in Indian, Bangladeshi, Burmese, Nepali, ...

batter and deep fried. The pakora is known also under other spellings including pikora, pakoda, pakodi and regional names such as

bhaji A bhaji is a type of fritter originating from the Indian subcontinent. It is made from spicy hot vegetables, commonly onion, and has several variants. It is a popular snack food in India, it is also very popular in Pakistan, and Trinidad and Tob ...

, bhajiya, bora, ponako, and chop.

Etymology

The word ''pakoṛā'' is derived from

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...

पक्ववट ''pakvavaṭa'', a compound of ''pakva'' ('cooked') and '' vaṭa'' ('a small lump') or its derivative ''vaṭaka'', 'a round cake made of pulse fried in

oil An oil is any nonpolar chemical substance that is composed primarily of hydrocarbons and is hydrophobic (does not mix with water) & lipophilic (mixes with other oils). Oils are usually flammable and surface active. Most oils are unsaturated ...

or ghee'. Some divergence of transliteration may be noted in the third consonant in the word. The sound is a hard 'da' in the

Telugu language Telugu (; , ) is a Dravidian language spoken by Telugu people predominantly living in the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, where it is also the official language. It is the most widely spoken member of the Dravidian language fam ...

and the 'ra' sound would be an incorrect pronunciation. The sound is the

retroflex flap The voiced retroflex flap is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is r`. Features Features of the voice ...

, which is written in

Hindi Hindi ( Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been ...

with the

Devanagari Devanagari ( ; , , Sanskrit pronunciation: ), also called Nagari (),Kathleen Kuiper (2010), The Culture of India, New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, , page 83 is a left-to-right abugida (a type of segmental writing system), based on the ...

letter ड़, and in

Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
'' International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration The International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration (IAST) is a transliteration scheme that allows the lossless romanisation of Indic scripts as employed by Sanskrit and related Indic languages. It is based on a scheme that emerged during ...

, the Hindi letter ड़ is transliterated as < ṛ>, popular or non-standard transliterations of Hindi use for this sound, because etymologically, it derives from ड . The occurrence of this consonant in the word ''pakora'' has given rise to two common alternative spellings in English: ''pakoda'', which reflects its

etymology Etymology ()The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) – p. 633 "Etymology /ˌɛtɪˈmɒlədʒi/ the study of the class in words and the way their meanings have changed throughout time". is the study of the history of the Phonological chan ...

, and ''pakora'', which reflects its

phonology Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...

History

Early variation of pakora appears in Sanskrit literature and Tamil Sangam literature but recipe is not clearly provided as they only mention them as 'a round cake made of pulse fried in oil' and 'crispy fried vegetables' which were served as part of the meals. Early known recipes come from

Manasollasa The ' also known as ''Abhilashitartha Chintamani'', is an early 12th-century Sanskrit text composed by the Kalyani Chalukya king Someshvara III, who ruled in present-day Karnataka . It is an encyclopedic work covering topics such as polity, gove ...

(1130 CE) cookbook where it mentions ''"Parika"'' (pakoda) and method of preparing it with vegetables and gram flour. Lokopakara (1025 CE) cookbook also mentions unique pakora recipe where gram flour is pressed into fish-shaped moulds and fried in mustard oil.Feasts and Fasts: A History of Food in India, pg151, Colleen Taylor Sen · 2015

Preparation

Pakoras are made by coating ingredients, usually vegetables, in a spiced batter, then deep frying them. Common varieties of pakora use

onion An onion (''Allium cepa'' L., from Latin ''cepa'' meaning "onion"), also known as the bulb onion or common onion, is a vegetable that is the most widely cultivated species of the genus ''Allium''. The shallot is a botanical variety of the onio ...

, chicken, arbi root and leaves, eggplant, potato,

chili pepper Chili peppers (also chile, chile pepper, chilli pepper, or chilli), from Nahuatl '' chīlli'' (), are varieties of the berry-fruit of plants from the genus ''Capsicum'', which are members of the nightshade family Solanaceae, cultivated for ...

, spinach,

paneer Paneer (), also known as ponir () is a fresh acid-set cheese common in the Indian subcontinent (Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka) made from full-fat buffalo milk or cow milk. It is a non-aged, non-melting sof ...

, cauliflower,

mint MiNT is Now TOS (MiNT) is a free software alternative operating system kernel for the Atari ST system and its successors. It is a multi-tasking alternative to TOS and MagiC. Together with the free system components fVDI device drivers, XaA ...

plantain Plantain may refer to: Plants and fruits * Cooking banana, banana cultivars in the genus ''Musa'' whose fruits are generally used in cooking ** True plantains, a group of cultivars of the genus ''Musa'' * ''Plantaginaceae'', a family of flowerin ...

or baby corn. The batter is most commonly made with gram flour or mixture of gram flour and rice flour but variants can use other flours, such as buckwheat flour. The spices used in the batter are up to the cook and may be chosen due to local tradition or availability; often these include fresh and dried spices such as chilli, fenugreek and coriander.

Serving

Pakoras are eaten as a snack or appetiser, often accompanied with

chutney A chutney is a spread in the cuisines of the Indian subcontinent. Chutneys are made in a wide variety of forms, such as a tomato relish, a ground peanut garnish, yogurt or curd, cucumber, spicy coconut, spicy onion or mint dipping sa ...

raita Raita is a side dish in Indian cuisine made of dahi (yogurt, often referred to as curd) together with raw or cooked vegetables, more seldom fruit, or in the case of boondi raita, with fried droplets of batter made from besan ( chickpea flour, ...

. They are also offered with ''

masala chai Masala chai (, ; Urdu: مصالحہ چائے, Hindi: मसाला चाय) is an Indian tea beverage made by boiling black tea in milk and water with a mixture of aromatic herbs and spices. Originating in India the beverage has gained worl ...

'' to guests at Indian wedding ceremonies.

Regional names

A gram flour fritter is known in

Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is a state in southern India. It is the tenth largest Indian state by area and the sixth largest by population. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu is the home of the Tamil people, whose Tamil language ...

and Sri Lanka as Pakoda or bajji,

Gujarat Gujarat (, ) is a state along the western coast of India. Its coastline of about is the longest in the country, most of which lies on the Kathiawar peninsula. Gujarat is the fifth-largest Indian state by area, covering some ; and the ninth ...

as ''bhajia'', in Maharashtra as ''bhaji'', in

Andhra Pradesh Andhra Pradesh (, abbr. AP) is a state in the south-eastern coastal region of India. It is the seventh-largest state by area covering an area of and tenth-most populous state with 49,386,799 inhabitants. It is bordered by Telangana to the ...

Telangana Telangana (; , ) is a state in India situated on the south-central stretch of the Indian peninsula on the high Deccan Plateau. It is the eleventh-largest state and the twelfth-most populated state in India with a geographical area of and 3 ...

and

Karnataka Karnataka (; ISO: , , also known as Karunāḍu) is a state in the southwestern region of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, with the passage of the States Reorganisation Act. Originally known as Mysore State , it was renamed ''Karnat ...

as '' bajji'' or "Pakodi". ''Pakoda'' may be interpreted in these states as deep fried balls of finely chopped onions, green chilis, and spices mixed in gram flour.

Gallery

File:Pakoramumbai.jpg, Pakoras are commonly fried with gram flour File:Pakora (6005558506).jpg, Pakodas made from onions and greens File:Taste of the Himalayas at farmers market - May 2018 - Stierch 07.jpg, Onion Pakoras with mint chutney. File:Chicken pakora in Jätkäsaari.jpg, Chicken Pakoras File:19th June 2015 Pakora.jpg, Close-up of pakora containing spinach File:Aesthetic Pakoda.jpg, Onion pakora File:Bread Pakoda 1.jpg, Bread pakora, made by deep-frying bread slices coated with gram flour File:Pakoras in Jaipur.jpg, Pakoras in

Jaipur Jaipur (; Hindi: ''Jayapura''), formerly Jeypore, is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Rajasthan. , the city had a population of 3.1 million, making it the tenth most populous city in the country. Jaipur is also known ...

File:Food-Chicken-Pakoda.jpg, Chicken Pakoras File:Kadhipakora Rayagada Odisha 0017.jpg, Pakoras are also used in ''Khadi Pakora'' gravy, eaten with rice. File:Palak Pakoras.jpg, Spinach Pakoras File:Kadhi Pakora.jpg, Khadi Pakora is pakora and yogurt based gravy eaten with rice or roti.

References

{{Doughnuts South Indian cuisine Indian snack foods Bangladeshi snack foods Bangladeshi fast food Pakistani snack foods Pakistani fast food Nepalese cuisine Indian fast food Afghan cuisine Bangladeshi cuisine Indo-Caribbean cuisine Fijian cuisine Fritters