Onion bhaji

We made a little Indian buffet yesterday for our meal.  We used some left over curry, chicken tikka, and chapati, and made some onion bhaji to pad it it out.  We actually did not have any onions, and so I used the 15p shallots that were sold in Lidl at Christmas (I bought nine bags and stored them in a hessian sack). The recipe was based on the BBC Good Food one, but I adapted it to what I had in.

Recipe

2 onions thinly sliced (I used 4 shallots)

100g plain flour (you can use gram flour if you have some).

1/2 tsp of baking powder

1/2 tsp of turmeric

1/2 tsp of chilli powder

1/4 tsp salt

1 red chilli, finely chopped and deseeded (a green one will be fine)

100ml of cold water.

Rape seed oil (or similar for frying)

Method

1.  Soak the sliced onion in cold water (I did not soak the shallots as they have a milder taste).
2.  In a bowl sift all the dry ingredients together and then add the chopped chilli.
3.  Mix the water into the ingredients in the bowl. My batter had a thickish dropping consistency.
4.  Add the drained onions to the mixture and stir well.
5.  Heat the oil in a wok or pan.  Mine was about 4 cm deep.
6.  Test that the batter is hot enough by putting a bit into the oil.  It should come quickly to the surface.
7. I put 3 bhaji into the pan at a time and cooked them for about 3 minutes and then turned them and cooked for another 3 or 4 minutes.  They should go a golden brown colour and be crisp.
8.  Drain the bhaji on kitchen paper and cook the rest (we got 7 or 8 quite big ones in total.
9.  Serve whilst hot.