Crispy Onion Pakoda

I never really thought about blogging this recipe until last week. As I was making this with my sister in her kitchen and walking her through it, I realized that not everything involved in it is intuitive and simple and its worth a blog post. This recipe evolved over the last 3 years and prior to that I used to make simple soggy onion pakoda. Some of it was inspired by this post by Asha of Foodie's hope and others are techniques I learned over time.

Ingredients:

1. Red onion - 2 large onion, thinly sliced
2. Besan - 1 cup
3. Rice flour - 1 cup
4. Corriander seeds - 1/2 cup
5. Curry leaves - 10, finely chopped
6. Corriander - 1/2 cup finely chopped
7. Salt
8. Red chilli powder - 1 tsp
9. Fresh ginger paste - 1 tsp
10. Fresh garlic paste - 1 tsp
11. Oil for frying
12. Chat masala

Directions:

Mix all the ingredients above without any water. Add more besan or rice flour if needed. The end result should be onions that are mildly moist and coated slightly with the flours. You should see more onions than flour.Do not add water unless the mixture is too dry. Take 1 tsp of the heated oil and add it to the mixture. This and the less water help make the pakodas very crispy. Heat oil in the pan and use two forks to drop the onions and separate them in the pan. Try not to drop lumps but each onion piece separately. This makes a huge difference. Fry until golden brown and sprinkle with chat masala as soon as the pakoda is out of the oil and serve hot with tomato ketchup.