Kumro Phool Bhaja or Batter-Fried Pumpkin Flowers
This recipe is part of the series The Recipe I Mastered This Year.
I have a little kitchen garden right in the middle of a very busy neighbourhood in Bangalore. For every car honk and incessant drilling of JCBs, there are butterflies flitting and the sunbirds chirping in my garden. It is my sanctuary.
My favourite among the fruit trees, green beds and climbers and creepers is the pumpkin plant. Last year this season, I harvested 40 kilos of pumpkin, each fruit about four luscious kilos. This year, the creeper hasn’t fruited. I did however see a lot of flowers. Kind folks on various Facebook groups informed me there is a female flower and a male flower and that I needed to pick up a paint brush and hand-pollinate them myself. Not a very good artist, I did pick up the paint brush hoping to get a beautiful picture by the end of it, but to no luck. This year’s creeper was grown from seed that was saved last year. But we keep our beloved older tree; her flowers are so pretty, so delicate, I wanted to preserve in the museum of my heart.
That is when my Bengali caretaker insisted they are far better honoured coated in batter and deep fried. We tried it once, and the rest as they say is history. It is a regular favourite now in our home.
Ingredients
1/2 cup refined flour
1/4 cup rice flour
2 tbsp semolina
1/2 cup water
1/2 tsp nigella seeds (kalonji)
1.5 tsp ginger garlic paste
3/4 tbsp salt, or to taste
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp sugar
Methods
Clean and remove the stem and stigma of the pumpkin flowers, using a vertical slit. Wash them gently.
Prepare a batter with water, refined flour and rice flour. Add a little semolina for crunch. (Optionally, you can also add in 3 tbsp tbsp gram flour; we prefer not to).
Flavour the batter with ginger garlic paste, salt, turmeric and nigella seeds (kalonji). Add in the sugar
Take two flowers, fold them in half and gently dip them in the batter, then deep fry in a wok with hot oil, on medium flame till it turns golden brown.
In Bengali homes, these fritters are consumed as a side to with rice and dal, or as an appetiser with kasaundi (mustard). I enjoy them with my evening cup of chai when in season.
ALSO ON THE GOYA JOURNAL
