Passport & Plate - Karandi vadi (Shrimp & Fenugreek fritters)
India | Tuesday, March 11, 2014 | 5 photos
Ingredients
250gms - Fresh shrimps
2 cups - Gram flour/chickpea flour
¼ cup - Semolina
2 cups – chopped Fenugreek (fresh leaves)
1 cup – chopped Coriander leaves
1 cup – chopped Spring onion
1 tbsp - Turmeric powder
2 tbsp - Red chilly powder (add or subtract as per taste)
½ tbsp - Garlic paste
1 tbsp – Garam masala
Salt (as per taste)
Ghee (clarified butter) or oil - To shallow fry (as needed)
• Clean the shrimps (by removing their heads, legs, tails and outer shell). It took me forever to clean them! I realized it requires so much patience! (Later thanked my mother for doing it for all these years)
• For the fenugreek, you can also use the tender stems, which come along while pulling out the leaves from the stem. It adds texture.
• With the spring onions, use the green hollow leaves as well as the root bulb. It provides both texture and a mild onion taste.
• The coriander will not only add a lovely aroma but also cancel out any extra bitter flavor from the fenugreek leaves. (Sometimes the fenugreek leaves are found to be bitter).
A special something which I would like to share:
• I also used a tablespoon of a special masala (spice mix), which my mother sent me. She grinds it fresh every year which includes many awesome spices like cloves, green cardamom, black cardamom, mustard seeds, bay leaves, cinnamon, aniseed, cumin, black cumin, black peppercorns, coriander seeds, fenugreek seeds, nutmeg, black stone flower or kalpasi, poppy seeds, star anise, carom seeds. They are all individually taken in a certain given quantity (this secret spice mix recipe was handed over from my grandmother to her) and she roasts them to perfection and then takes it to the local grinding mill and gets it ground which can be stored and used for the whole year.
How to prepare this recipe• This recipe is very easy. Mix all the ingredients (except for the butter or oil that will be used to shallow fry) to form a batter and let the batter sit for a while (around 10 mins).
• Take a frying pan; heat some ghee/oil.
• Make small round balls and flatten them with your fingers.
• Place them on the pan and give them more shape and flatten them further (try not to burn your fingers while you are at it!)
• On a low flame, shallow fry on both sides till they are lovely golden brown and crisp.
• Serve them hot as a side starter with chutney or just the way they are. They can also be served with bread (pav) or as a meal accompaniment.
A few words of caution:
• Do not use water while mixing the batter. When you let it sit for a while it will automatically leave off some water from the onion and the shrimp. If you use water, it will make the batter sticky and the fritters will be chewy and not crisp.
• Also, while mixing the batter, please be gentle. Else the shrimp will break and become a paste hence providing no texture of the lovely little shrimps and very less taste of it too. (Been there done that! The first time I made the fritters, I mixed the batter so vigorously that no traces of shrimp were found!)
• The key is to not make fat fritter. If they remain fat, they might not get cooked from inside/ they will not be crispy/ they will be gooey and you will feel the taste of the slightly uncooked batter, which is not so very nice to taste. (Again, been there done that, rather, eaten that!)
The story behind this recipeFirstly, I had to actually go online & find out what this dish could be called in English. It is my mother’s recipe & she calls it karandi (small shrimp) vadi. I honestly couldn’t figure out if it should be classified as a shrimp cake or a croquette. After some reading, I realized it is a fritter.
Since childhood I have always been a fish & sea-food fan, prawns being my favourite. But during the month of Shraavana we were not supposed to eat non-vegetarian food to honor the Ganesh festival. (Srava?a is the fifth month of the Hindu year, beginning in late July & ending in the third week of August).
(During Shraavana the Hindu Community in the regions of Goa, Maharashtra and Karnataka practice Vegetarian Diet. This is because in the Monsoon season it is difficult to get sea food at this time of the year & it is thought that most fish spawn during this period and abstaining from fishing in Shraavana will lead to increased fish throughout the year. Source: Wikipedia).
So this whole time of abstinence from sea food and meat, used to end after monsoon & it would be welcomed by fresh catch of sea food at the arrival of winter. I would be waiting anxiously for my mother to make her awesome karandi vadi and would chomp down on as many as I could. And my mother would love making them because this would be the only way to feed us with the healthy greens (fenugreek leaves and coriander which I otherwise wouldn’t care to eat) and shrimps which are healthy to eat during winters.
Though now I do not follow the abstinence of non-vegetarian food during Shraavana, I still wait longingly for the fresh catch of shrimp to arrive so my mom can make the fritters. I have learnt to make them with trials and errors but I think my mother makes them the best! ?
My mother, who is a strict vegetarian, makes these fritters minus the shrimps. The fenugreek fritters are still lovely to eat but nothing beats the heavenly taste of the shrimps in it!
