European 'Akara' aka fritters

By Kitchen Butterfly, posted 7 months ago

Akara to Nigerians, Acaraje to Brazillians. These black-eyed bean fritters are perfect for the vegan breakfast table or lunch box. Commonly eaten with bread or corn pap, they are both street food (wrapped in newspapers) and homemade.... In our family, this was Saturday morning food, every Saturday. However, the road to making them is paved with hardwork and supreme effort to skin the beans. My version uses bean/gram flour (considering that the beans in Europe are polished making the skins even harder than normal to take off!). The first time I tried them, I was perfectly surprised to see how good they tasted, that next time, I livened them up with cumin seeds and chopped cilantro (coriander) leaves.

Serves 4

• 1 cup black eyed bean flour or gram (lentil) flour, about 150g
• 1 small onion, peeled and blended with a tablespoon of water
• Fresh chili pepper (optional)
• 1 tablespoon chopped cilantro (coriander) leaves
• 1 teaspoon dry roasted and lightly crushed cumin seeds
• 1/2 cup water
• Oil , for deep frying

1. In a bowl, combine flour, blended onions, chili pepper (if using), cilantro and cumin seeds. Stir well to combine.
2. Make a hole in the centre of the mixture, pour in water and stir well to combine. Batter should be of slightly thinner consistency than dips like hummus. If batter is too thick, add more water by the tablespoonful and watch. This is because you want the fritters it to hold their shape when fried.
3. Add some salt to the batter. For this recipe, I used 1/2 a teaspoon of salt but adjust to your taste.
4. Heat up oil in a deep pan. When oil is hot, scoop up some batter, using a tablespoon for large fritters or a teaspoon for smaller one. Gently lower the fritter batter into the hot oil, and continue till the pan is full.
5. When the bottom of the fritters are brown, 2-3 minutes, turn over and let the other side brown.
6. When both sides are browned, remove with a slotted spoon and leave to drain on kitchen tissue or in a sieve.
7. Serve with bread....preferably white bread and a cuppa.