Onion Bhajis or how to bhaji anything!

This is one of my daughters favourites, I reckon its in the top five of all dishes we make. Why does she like them so much – I don’t know! Maybe because I do?

I find that the combination of mild aromatic spices, crispy gram flour batter and half-cooked onions makes for that je ne sais quoi flavour and texture combination that urges you to reach for more.

When cooked in a healthy stable fat like tallow, ghee or coconut oil – these are nutritious, delicious and cheap! They are also easy to pack and transport, grain free, egg free and dairy free if you omit the yoghurt which is used only as a raising agent anyway.

To top it all – do you know about the numerous health benefits of onions? I guess we all know that onion is a trusted remedy for colds and flu, but now scientific studies have shed some light on as to why:

A study conducted at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle found that eating a teaspoon of fresh garlic and a half cup of onions per day increases the levels of a key enzyme for removing toxins in the blood cells of healthy women Surprising Health benefits of Garlic and onions

The star of all wonderful things in an onion it seems is a flavonoid called quercetin. It has antihistamine and  anti-inflammatory properties, is a super powerful anti-oxidant, supports respiratory health, cardiovascular health, normalises blood pressure. Read more here. 

And as you would expect it is better to get this wonder-flavonoid from onions than from tablets (isn’t it almost always the case?) :

When we get quercetin by eating an onion-rather than consuming the quercetin in purified, supplement form-we may end up getting better protection from oxidative stress.

Several servings of onion each week are sufficient to statistically lower your risk of some types of cancer. For colorectal, laryngeal, and ovarian cancer, between 1-7 servings of onion has been shown to provide risk reduction. But for decreased risk of oral and esophageal cancer, you’ll need to consume one onion serving per day (approximately 1/2 cup). Read more about onions here 

For a small portion – about 18-20 bhajis (enough to feed my 5yo – haha!)

You will need:

250 g  onion – 1 large (huge-ish) onion  or  2 normal ones

1/2 cup gram (chickpea)  flour (or a little more if you would like them more doughy)

1 t jeera (cumin powder)

1 t turmeric

1 t coriander

2 T yoghurt or kefir (optional, for dairy free version use anything acidic to activate baking soda, a teaspoon of vinegar would work wonderfully)

1-2 T water – depending on how juicy the onion is

1/2-1 t salt

1/2 t baking soda

3 T+ fat of choice to shallow fry

Method:

Cut onion in quarters, then slice thinly (0.5 cm or less). Save the onion skins to make tea when you need a boost – most of the quercetin is in the skin. The tea tastes slightly bitter and not like onion at all. Skin of one large onion would be enough to brew a litre of this immune boosting anti-oxidant tea.

Chopped onion and its amazing skin

Now please leave the excitement about the onions skins on a back-burner (for 30 min) and come back to your raw onions 🙂

Mix in the spices, salt and gram flour into a bowl of chopped onions. If you are not pressed for time – cover and wait, the onion juice will be extracted by the salt and you’ll have a batter. Later you can add a little less water than specified (or none at all). If you need to speed things up, mix everything in including water and the sour medium too, but do let it stand 5 minutes at least as onions need this time to soften. Add baking soda last.

I use two spoons to shape the bhajis and drop them into an iron pan with about 2 T tallow or coconut oil. Fry on medium heat until golden and then turn over. You are looking for deep golden colour all over.  My 28 cm De Buyer pan  ( I have this one and I LOVE IT!) normally can manage 5-6 bhajis at a time, so it takes 3-4 batches to fry the lot.

frying bhajis

I  put my oven on at 100 C and keep the cooked bhajis there until all are fried and ready to serve.

You can make a salty yoghurt dip, raita-like to go with the bhajis: 1 cup yoghurt, some chopped mint, a crushed garlic clove, a pinch of salt , dry or fresh  coriander – if you like. My daughter always liked them as is, but today she exclaimed “I am so glad we made that dip!”  and just to think that I almost gave up on her eating anything white…

Onion Bhajis

How to “bhaji” almost anything:

I have added cooked chicken, mushrooms and cooked beef to this recipe before, either to use up leftovers or to enhance the nutritional value – all versions taste great and are child-approved! You can add anything really, you are just going direction Pakora then – a more general Indian fritter.

To “bhaji” your desired ingredient, simply add cooked meat or raw/cooked vegetables to the basic batter above. Depending on the quantity, you may need to add a little chickpea flour and a little water to maintain your batter consistency, then proceed as for the plain onion bhajis.

So many things work in chickpea flour batter!  We have tried dipping pieces of fish into a mix of gram flour and water – delicious! My daughter recently suggested trying liver bhajis – and who knows, we might, but we just might love liver too much to bhaji it 🙂

I would love to hear about your experiences with our suggestions on onions and chickpea flour. Do you eat a lot of onions? Do you like using gram flour?