Cooking with Colm O'Gorman: Onion Bhajis with coriander and mint chutney

The perfect start to an Indian feast or snack in front of a film

Once you make these homemade onion bhajis you'll never buy shop-bought ones again.

This week’s recipe is perfect as a starter or side dish as part of a larger Indian feast, or as a Friday night snack in front of the fire with a beer of a glass of wine.

These lovely onion bhajis only take about thirty minutes to prepare and cook, and that includes fifteen minutes to let the onions absorb the spices before you mix up your batter.

You could use those fifteen minutes to make the chutney to accompany the bhajis and still have time to light the fire or to choose a film to watch as you tuck into these classic Indian snacks.

If you do want to make a main course to go along with these, you could try my Butternut Squash and Spinach Dahl for a lovely vegetarian or vegan feast, or my Lamb Bhuna.

There are a few ingredients here that you might not be familiar with. Gram flour is made from chickpeas and is readily available in most health food shops or Asian supermarkets. Nigella seed and asafoetida are spices that you will also find in Asian Supermarkets.

If you cannot get hold of them, or if you are making these bhajis on the spur of the moment, you can leave them out. If you do not have any tamarind paste for the chutney, you can use the juice of half a lime and a teaspoon of brown sugar as an alternative.

You can also adapt this recipe easily and use other vegetables. Swap the sliced onions for cauliflower florets for example.

Just make sure you cut them down into small florets and blanch them for a few minutes in boiling water before draining them and then adding the spices, chilli, coriander and then finally the gram flour to make your batter.

Some spiralised carrot would also be a lovely alternative to the onions, with a little spinach maybe. That would be delicious.

Onion bhajis with coriander and mint chutney

recipe by:Colm O'Gorman

The perfect start to an Indian feast or snack in front of the television

Servings

4

Preparation Time

 15 mins

Cooking Time

 15 mins

Total Time

 30 mins

Course

 Starter

Cuisine

 Indian

Ingredients

• For the bhajis:

• 2 large white onions

• 1 green chilli

• 1 tbsp chopped coriander

• ½ tsp garam masala

• ½ tsp turmeric

• 1tsp flaky sea salt

• ½ tsp nigella seed, optional

• A generous pinch of asafoetida, optional

• 125g gram flour 

• 60ml cold water

•  

• For the chutney:

• 20g fresh coriander

• 10g fresh mint

• 1 green chilli

• 1 tsp of tamarind paste

• 1 tbsp of desiccated coconut

• 60ml natural yoghurt

• 1 tsp honey

Method

1. Slice the onions thinly and put them in a mixing bowl. Finely chop the chilli, discarding the stalks and white membrane if you want to keep the heat to a minimum. I generally keep them in as I love a decent chilli hit in my bhajis. Chop some coriander, you want about a tablespoon to add to the bhaji mix and you can use the stalks and leaves for this recipe. The stalks of coriander have bags of flavour, so I use them a lot in my cooking. Pop the chilli and coriander into the bowl with the onions and add the spices. Mix everything well, cover and set aside for about twenty minutes.

2. Put all the chutney ingredients into a blender and blitz until you have a smooth sauce like consistency. This will only take minutes. Again, remove the seeds and the white membrane from the chilli if you do not want a particularly spicy chutney. If you want to adapt this recipe to make it vegan, use a little water or some soy yogurt instead of the dairy yoghurt.

3. After the onion mix has had about twenty minutes to rest, add the gram flour and stir it in well. The onions will by now have released a bit of water, so combine the mixture well before judging how much more liquid you need to add. The batter should be quite thick, so add a little water at a time until you have the right consistency. You want all the ingredients to be well combined and coated in batter, but the batter shouldn’t be runny. I find that about 60ml of water is the most I need to use to get a good batter.

4. Heat enough sunflower oil to deep fry the bhaji to 180 Celsius. You need to get the temperature right or the batter will spread out when you add the bhaji and you will end up with a pan full of messy, oily onions. I use my trusty probe thermometer to check the temperature, it is one of the kitchen tools I would not be without. Once the oil is at 180 Celsius, use two tablespoons to form a nice sized bhaji and lower it into the oil. Take care not to overcrowd the pan, I usually fry these in a wok and cook them no more than three or four at a time.

5. After a few minutes in the oil, use a slotted spoon to turn the bhaji over. Keep an eye on them, you may need to turn them over a few times until they are crisp and golden brown all over. When they are lovely and golden, remove them from the pan and drain them on some kitchen towel to remove any excess oil. You can keep your bhajis warm in an oven as you finish cooking the rest. This recipe will easily give you ten to twelve individual bhajis.

6. Once they are all cooked, serve them immediately with the green chutney.