August phool (august flower) ke pakoda/fritters

• Servings: 2-3
• Preparation time: 10 minutes.
• Frying time: 10 minutes.
• Total time: 20 minutes.

I was so happy and surprised to see the ‘August flower’ tree in my bungalow garden in Kudankulam near kanyakumari because it reminds me about three decades ago down the memory lane; tasty, delicious and mouth watering recipes of my childhood; cooked by my maternal aunt on the occasion of chhath pooja.

That moment I decided to upload as many as recipes of this beautiful and delicious flower.

The flower is usually grown in clusters of 2-5 in number.

Today, I am going to upload ‘August phool ka pakoda (august flower fritters)’, which was almost mandatory on the day ‘Nahay- Khay’, two day before auspicious Chhath Pooja.

The flower contains all the nutrients that make strong body like calcium, iron…It has tonic properties which help to cure Anemia, Tumor and also helps to improve memory. ‘Agusti’ in Sanskrit, ‘Bokful’ in Bangla, ‘Agati’ in Tamil, ‘Agastya’ in kannad and the botanical name is ‘Sesbania Grandiflora’

Note: It is good to choose flowers that have not bloomed fully, ‘August phool ka pakoda/fritters’ are very tasty and loved by all.

Ingredient:

• August phool (august flower): 10-12 no.
• Garlic paste: ½ teaspoon
• Salt: half teaspoon
• Ajwain (carom seeds): ¼ teaspoon
• Kalongi (onion seed): ¼ spoons
• Besan (gram flour): 1 cup
• Water: 1 cup
• Mustard oil: for deep fry
• Meetha soda (Soda bicarb): 1 pinch

Preparation:

1. Take flower; discard stigma (centre hard stem) keep aside.
2. Take a bowl. Put Besan, salt, Ajwain, Kalongi and Meetha soda in it.
3. Make a smooth batter with the help of water.

Method:

Deep fry the pakoda:

1. Take kadhai (fry pan), heat oil; let oil to smoke. Pour a drop of batter into the oil.
2. If batter comes up, it means right temperature of oil otherwise wait for a while and test again.
3. After getting right temperature of oil, dip the flower (one whole flower at a time) into batter. (Either direct by hand or spoon)
4. Deep fry all flowers, when they start to come up slowly turn over.
5.  Fry till it becomes golden brown on both sides(about 2-3 minutes each side).
6. Serve hot with tomato sauce.
7. “August phool ke pakoda/fritters” are very tasty and loved by all.

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August phool (august flower) ke pakoda/fritters by Nag Ratna Sahu is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.