Chai Pakoda Day, Marine Plaza Hotel, Mumbai
Across the world, we celebrate various days such as Father’s Day, Mother’s Day, Women’s Day etc. which are generic in nature, and then there are days like National Sibling Day, National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day etc. which were primarily started in Northern America and a lot of us also end up celebrating here, well there is nothing wrong about it all, but when Rushina M. Ghildiyal introduced the concept of Indian Food Observance Days last year, a lot of us got so excited, celebrating something that all of us in the country can very easily associate to and definitely something we really enjoy!
Two weeks ago to today was #ChaiPakodaDay (I know its super late to write about it but better late than never) and Rushina and the Marine Plaza Hotel hosted a fun evening celebrating the monsoon staple of chai and pakodas!
With an assortment of vegetarian and non vegetarian pakodas and chais to offer, we were also given a demo on how to make some delicious ambada pakodas!
Unlike any of the paneer pakodas that I have had before, these were finger licking good and a delight to relish!
What added to the experience was the fact that we were in a property overlooking marine drive on a windy monsoon evening!
The Recipe for the same is as follows:
AMBADA PANEER
Portion size: 2
INGREDIENTS QUANTITY
Paneer slice 400 Gms
Ambada leaves 100 Gms
Chili chopped 5 Gms
Nachni flour 150 Gms
Rice flour 150 Gms
Hung curd 50 Gms
Carom seeds 3 Gms
Garam masala powder 2 Gms
Chaat Masala to taste
Salt to taste
Water as required
Oil for frying
Method:
Cut the paneer into rectangular pieces and slice them half way through the centre. Blanch the Ambada leaves and make paste out of them. Add hung curd, garam masala powder, and chopped green chili to the paste. Season it with salt. Marinate the paneer into this mixture and also stuff it with Ambada paste.
Make a batter of nachni flour, rice flour, carom seeds & salt. It should be of coating consistency. Dip the paneer into the batter and deep fry it in oil. Sprinkle with chaat masala and serve it with mint chutney.
The demo was followed with a delicious high tea with an assortment of pakodas like the gulgule (sweet pakodas that have jaggery and flour as the main ingredient), a few non vegetarian pakodas and tea!
The pakodas that we relished in the evening were part of the on going chai pakoda festival at the Marine Plaza and I can only go back to the wonderful evening we spent talking about our favourite pakoda memories over an array of pakodas!
Waah. Great day with chai and pakodas.
truly wonderful!