Cheesy bread pakora

Ingredients

4 slices of white bread

2 tablespoons salted butter

4 tablespoons grated Cheddar cheese

2 tablespoons sunflower oil

FOR THE POTATO MIXTURE

1 large potato, peeled and cut into 1cm (½ inch) pieces

1 tablespoon sunflower oil

10 fresh curry leaves

2.5cm (1 inch) piece of fresh root ginger, peeled and grated

2 garlic cloves, grated

1 teaspoon garam masala

1 teaspoon amchur (mango powder)

½ teaspoon chilli powder

½ teaspoon salt

handful of fresh cilantro leaves, finely chopped

FOR THE BATTER

100g (3½oz) gram flour (besan/chickpea flour)

½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon chilli powder

½ teaspoon ground turmeric

½ teaspoon carom seeds

about 130ml (4¼fl oz) water

Directions

To make the potato mixture, put the potato pieces in a pan, cover with water and bring to the boil, then cook for 5 minutes. Drain and mash with a fork.

Heat the oil in another pan, add the curry leaves, ginger and garlic and cook over a low heat for a few seconds. Then add all the spices, salt, coriander and mashed potato and mix together well. Take the pan off the heat and let the mixture cool slightly. Then either use your hands or a potato masher to press the mixture together.

To make the batter, mix the gram flour, salt and spices together in a bowl. Then gradually whisk in enough of the measured water to make a smooth batter with a coating consistency.

Spread one side of each bread slice with the butter. Divide the potato mixture between 2 of the buttered bread slices and spread over, then sprinkle each with 2 tablespoons cheese. Cover with the other bread slices, buttered side down, and press to seal. You can tidy up the sandwiches by cutting off the crusts if you wish, or leave them as they are.

Heat the oil in a frying pan. Carefully dip one sandwich at a time into the batter, add to the hot oil and cook over a high to medium heat for 1–2 minutes on each side until nice and golden. Serve the sandwiches immediately, either whole or cut into quarters.

Notes

Bread pakora are a popular Indian street food and there are so many variations out there. They are also often made at home as a snack and I like to cook these up for a lazy lunch. You can enjoy them as sandwiches or cut them up and serve as bite-sized snacks. Either way, they’re great with a chutney such as Coriander Peanut Chutney or even some ketchup.