by Gita Sharma & Alan Whykes
Pakoras are a tasty snack for any time of day or as an accompaniment to a meal. We had a free demonstration of this recipe and tasters to give away at Taste of the World at Moonah, Hobart, on 30 March 2014. Many thanks to Gita for doing a great job: seemed like the audience very much appreciated the 60 or so pakoras we served up.



Ingredients
2 medium potatoes
1 cup besan flour
130ml water
1 tsp salt
1 pinch baking powder
½ tsp curry or chilli powder (optional)
500ml oil (for frying)




Method

1. Mix the besan flour, salt, baking powder, curry powder and water in a bowl. Stir steadily until you have a thick batter.
2. Slice the potatoes thinly. You can peel the potatoes if that's your preference.
3. Heat the oil in a deep saucepan or wok until it's hot but not smoking. Dip each slice of potato in the batter and carefully slide it into the oil. Cook several pakoras at a time for 3 or 4 minutes until golden brown. Lift from oil and drain on a paper towel. Allow to cool for a few minutes as the vegetable piece will continue to cook inside the pakora.
4. Serve as is or with spicy chutney, hot dipping sauce or slices of cucumber. At Taste of the World we served some of our pakoras with a chutney made from mint leaves, dessicated coconut, ginger, onion, chilli, cashew nuts, almonds, vinegar and salt. Grind it in all into a paste and adjust seasonings to your taste.

Tips

• Other vegetables can used for making pakoras: pieces of steamed cauliflower, slices of onion, whole mushrooms, etc.
• Besan is a tasty flour made from chick peas. You can find it in Asian grocery shops and health food stores. Besan is gluten-free.
  
• Eat fried foods in moderation. Pakoras can be part of a nutritionally-balanced meal that includes for example steamed rice, mixed vegetable curry and lentil daal.

Interestingly, there's an enormous variety of wonderful vegan snacks and dishes from around the globe. I like to explore these cuisines, especially those of places where I have lived such as Indonesia, Italy, Germany and Russia. Specialty ethnic cuisine classes are usually titled Ethnovegan on my workshops page.

Feel like snacking on something Javanese? No, not Japanese! Over a number of years on various trips to Indonesia I became quite familiar with Javanese cuisine, which although consumed by 100 million people or so on a daily basis is precious little known outside its heartland. I also spent 5 weeks living as an exchange student in Semarang, which in particular has a reputation as the home of wingko babat.
Wingko babat is a coconut-flavoured rice cake that is very easy to make. Why not have a go yourself? Enjoy them warm just out of the oven or cold for a day or two afterwards.
* Ingredient tip - you can get glutinous rice flour from Asian specialty grocery stores. Don't substitute it because it gives these sweets a characteristic gluey texture.

Ingredients
400ml canned coconut milk, & a dash of water
200g brown sugar
200g glutinous rice flour
150g dessicated coconut

Method
1. Tip the coconut milk into a mixing bowl. Use a dash of water to rinse the can and add to the bowl as well. Meanwhile preheat an oven to 190C.
2. Measure the sugar into the mixing bowl. Stir vigorously until mostly dissolved.
3. Measure the glutinous rice flour and the coconut into the mixing bowl. Stir until well combined: the mixture should be thick like pancake batter.
4. Spoon the batter into a greased mini-muffin tray or into paper cups. Bake for 20 mins or until the wingko babat are beginning to turn golden brown.
5. Turn out on to a cooling rack and allow to cool for at least 5 minutes. Consume warm or cold. These bite-sized sweets are very good with strong black coffee.
Difficulty: Easy.
Time: 25 mins.
Yield: 30 small cakes.

Variations
- add a teaspoon of vanilla essence to the batter. Or a pinch of salt. Some people think this helps lift the flavour.
- pour the batter into a shallow tray and bake it as a single mass, then cut it into diamonds or squares. Don't make it more than 2cm thick.
- Green it: add a teaspoon of pandan essence! This works both as a flavour and a colour, highly recommended. Pandan essence is also available from Asian specialty stores. I used to harvest pandan leaves from a tree grown in my back yard in Darwin but unfortunately Moonah's a bit cold for pandan :-/

A lovely summery canape that is fresh and easy enough to make. As is commonly the case with raw recipes, you'll need to plan ahead a little. Sprouting the quinoa adds some nutritional punch so it's very worthwhile doing.

Ingredients
4 medium tomatoes
2 cups sprouted quinoa
2/3 cup pesto


Method

1. First you'll need to sprout your quinoa. Soak a cup of organic quinoa - try some lovely Tasmanian quinoa from Kindred Organics - for a few hours, rinse very thoroughly and then let it sit overnight to sprout.
2. Cut the tomatoes in half and carefully scoop out the flesh. Keep it, you can use it for something else :-). Rub some salt on the inside of the tomatoes and put them upside down on a paper towel.
3. While the tomatoes are softening you can make some pesto. Traditionally basil leaves are the main ingredient but I also like to add in various edible leaves from my garden: spinach, sorrel, radish, broccoli, kale, etc. Blend some generous handfuls of leaves with a little cold-pressed olive oil, lemon juice, a few nuts (pine nuts, almonds, walnuts, pistachios, etc. are all fine), garlic and nutritional yeast until you have a uniform paste. Season to taste.
4. Next, fold the sprouted quinoa into the pesto until it's well-mixed. Use a spoon to ladle the mixture into the tomato shells and garnish with a basil leaf if desired. Serve cold or at room temperature. Makes 8 tomato portions..