isithalal.food · Recipes

Chicken pakoras with Halal chicken

Afia Begom's chicken pakoras: bite-sized Halal chicken coated in cornflour, rice flour and gram flour with chilli, spices, onion and coriander, deep-fried until golden and served with chutney.

Indian · Snack · Easy · about 30 pakoras · 50 min

Each method follows published technique for the dish, and every Halal substitution is checked against the ingredient pages we cite. Photographs come from our ingredient library rather than the finished dish.

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Why Halal checks matter here

The pakoras are made from 700 g of boneless chicken, which is Halal only from Halal-slaughtered birds.

Halal-critical ingredients

• Chicken: Chicken is a Halal bird, but slaughter decides, and chicken without a Halal mark doesn't say how the bird was slaughtered. Buy the chicken from a Halal butcher or in a certified pack. See Chicken.

Ingredients

Pakoras

• 700 g Halal boneless chicken, in bite-sized pieces
• 2 tbsp cornflour
• 50 g rice flour
• 40 g gram flour, sieved
• 3 dried chillies, crushed (or 3 green chillies, finely chopped)
• ½ tsp chilli powder
• ½ tsp curry powder
• ½ tsp ground coriander
• ½ tsp cumin
• 2 small onions, chopped
• small bunch coriander, finely chopped
• 1 tsp salt
• about 150 ml water

To fry and serve

• as needed vegetable oil, for deep-frying
• to serve sweet chilli sauce or green chutney

Method

1. Coat the chicken. Put the chicken in a large bowl and coat the pieces in the cornflour with your hands. Mix in the rice flour, then the gram flour. Add the chillies, spices, onion, coriander and 1 tsp salt and mix well with your hands.
2. Add the water. Gradually add about 150 ml water until the mixture is moist and ever so slightly wet. You may not need it all; too much will stop the mixture binding.
3. Deep-fry. Fill a deep pan no more than a third full with vegetable oil and heat it to 180°C. Squeeze a small amount of the mixture together and lower it carefully into the oil with a spoon. Fry in small batches for 8 to 10 minutes, turning regularly, until cooked through and browned all over.
4. Drain and serve. Lift the pakoras onto a plate lined with kitchen paper while you fry the rest. Serve hot with sweet chilli sauce or green chutney.

Allergens

none

How this recipe was researched

Method adapted from BBC Good Food's 'Chicken pakoras' by Afia Begom of Afelia's Kitchen, which suggests them as a snack or part of an Indian meal (serves 6, makes around 30: 700 g boneless chicken in bite-sized pieces coated by hand in 2 tbsp cornflour, then 50 g rice flour and 40 g sieved gram flour; 3 crushed dried chillies (or 3 finely chopped green chillies), ½ tsp each chilli powder, curry powder, ground coriander and cumin, 2 small chopped onions, a small bunch of finely chopped coriander and 1 tsp salt mixed in; about 150 ml water added gradually until just moist, not all of it if the mix gets too wet to bind; a deep pan filled no more than a third with vegetable oil heated to 180°C; small squeezed spoonfuls fried 8 to 10 minutes in small batches, turning, until cooked through and browned; drained on kitchen paper and served hot with sweet chilli sauce or green chutney). We specified Halal chicken; nothing else needed changing. Timings follow the published technique rather than a kitchen test.

Photograph from our ingredient library: samosas, not the finished dish from this recipe.