Ragi Spinach Pakoda / Finger Millet Spinach Pakoda

Few days before, I got a big bunch of spinach leaves from the market. Even after used it for green rice, I had leftover. I always use only fresh spinach leaves for my cooking. So, I didn’t want to store the spinach leaves in the fridge and at the same time, I didn’t want to throw it also.

In the evening time, I planned to prepare ragi pakoda to accompany tea. I remembered about the left over spinach leaves and used them while making the dough for pakodas. As I used spinach in very less quantity, none at home were able to find out the addition of spinach. If you make it for kids, you can add more spinach leaves and make them to eat greens at least this way.

Basic Information:

Preparation Time: 10 minutes

Cooking Time: 20 minutes

Serves: 5 persons

Ingredients:

Finger Millet Flour / Ragi flour / Keppai Maavi – 2 cups

Spinach leaves – 3/4 cup, finely chopped

Onion – 1/2 cup, finely chopped

Green chillies – 3 nos, sliced into four

Coriander leaves – 3 strings, finely chopped

Curry leaves – 3 strings, finely chopped

Salt – to taste

Asafoetida – a pinch

Cumin seeds – 1 teaspoon, crushed

Ginger – 1 inch length piece, grated

Water – to make tight dough

Oil – for deep frying

Method:

1) Mix all the ingredients except water and oil.

2) Add water slowly to the mixture and make a tight dough. Don’t add too much water. Otherwise,  pakodas absorbs more oil. Taste and adjust the salt. Keep aside.

3) Heat oil in deep bottom kadai / frying pan.

4) When it is hot and not smoking, drop a very small piece of dough into the oil. It should come to surface immediately.

5) Now, pinch a very small portion of dough and drop into the oil slowly.

6) Fry till the ‘shh’ sound goes off and pakodas turn in its colour. You can also notice the bubbles in the frying pan reduces when the pakodas get cooked.

7) Remove pakodas from the oil using a ladle and transfer to a plate covered with kitchen towel, to absorb excess oil.

8) Serve hot with tomato ketchup. It tastes good without any condiment too.

Notes:

1) Add more spinach leaves if you prefer.

2) Always make tight dough for making pakodas. I measured oil before and after frying and there were only 1 and 1/2 tablespoons difference for both. So, consistency of dough is very important.

3) Best to have it immediately after frying the pakodas. Otherwise, few pakodas become hard to bite if you store it in a container or kept as such.

4) If you don’t have spinach, add more onion. More the onion, more the taste.