Garlic Scape Sweet Potato Pakoras or Fritters (Vegan)
Inspired by the looping curls of garlic scapes, these garlic scape and sweet potato pakoras are the whimsical vegan fritters that will brighten even the most dull of our 2020 COVID days. Inside the crunchy edges of these fritters are soft sweet potatoes, bits of carrot, onion, and garlic scapes. Pan-fried, so you don’t need to do the whole deep frying process (while I love deep fried foods, I hate heating and cleaning up after all that oil!), perfect with all sorts of sauces, chutneys, hot sauce, or even ketchup. I actually ate mine with homemade beet ketchup!
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All About Pakoras
The pakora, which is also sometimes called the pakoda, is a fried snack that is popular all across India often sold as street food. Pakoras can be made of many different foods, although they’re usually vegetables such as onion, eggplant, or potato, which are coated in a chickpea-based batter and fried. They’re usually enjoyed with sauces and chutneys, and are just a perfect appetizer or snack. And before we go any further, let me just state that no, these are not traditional pakora. I am no pakora expert, and not an expert at Indian cooking. These are just my playful and whimsical fritters that were inspired by pakoras. Unlike traditional pakoras, I incorporated rice flour for a lighter crisp, pan-fried the fritters, and, while there’s no exact shape for pakoras, these looping tangles are definitely not the norm. If you’re looking for a more classic pakora recipe, try this one from Indian Healthy Recipes
Looking for Sweet Potato Recipes? Try one of these!
- No Rice Sushi with Sweet Potato and Jicama
- Purple Sweet Potato Vegan Gnocchi with Leek, Mushroom and Coconut Cream Sauce
- Thai Red Curry Sweet Potato Dip
- Roasted Sweet Potato in Cape Gooseberry Sauce
- Stir-Fried Spicy Chinese Sweet Potatoes
- Golden Sweet Steamed Buns with Raisins and Pecans
Making Garlic Scape and Sweet Potato Pakoras
Start by cutting your garlic scapes all the way down the long side, as whole scapes can be a little thick to eat. We turned each of our scapes into 4 thin strips. Next spiralize your sweet potato and carrot using a setting for looser, larger spirals. The batter is made by just throwing everything in a bowl and mixing, and then the vegetables go on top. You’re probably going to say to yourself, “There’s no way this little batter can coat all these vegetables!”, but just start folding. After a couple minutes the vegetables will be coated.
Heat a good glug of oil in a large skillet, and once it’s hot you can start with your fritters. I like to start by laying down a garlic scape, and then covering that scape with a thin layer of sweet potato, carrot and onion, but I think that might just be me being weird. I don’t know, try it out and let me know if it works for you. Sometimes I even tie the scape in a somewhat circular-shaped knot before I lay it down- that I’m sure is just me being weird. Use your spatula to flatten it a little- you want as much of the pakora as possible to touch the oil-covered bottom of the pan. After a few minutes, give it a flip and press it down again. Repeat until there’s no more vegetables left, and enjoy.
Garlic Scape Sweet Potato Pakoras or Fritters (Vegan)
Ingredients
- ½ cup rice flour
- ¼ cup chickpea flour
- 2 tsp. nutritional yeast
- 1 tsp. brown mustard seeds
- ½ tsp. nigella seeds
- ½ tsp. garlic powder
- ¼ tsp. smoked paprika
- ¼ tsp. salt
- ¼ tsp. black pepper
- ¼ cup melted coconut oil
- 1 lb. sweet potato
- 5 large garlic scapes
- 1 large carrot
- ½ small onion
- Vegetable oil, for cooking
Instructions
- First prepare your batter. Combine the rice flour, chickpea flour, nutritional yeast, mustard and nigella seeds, garlic powder, paprika, salt, and pepper in a large bowl. Whisk to combine, the add the coconut oil and ½ cup of water. Whisk again to remove any lumps, and set aside.
- Prepare your vegetables. For the loopy, curling pakora I made, spiralize your sweet potato and carrot in large loops (otherwise you can just grate them). Slice the garlic scapes in quarters, down the length, so you have four thin, long, strips per scape. Thinly slice the onion into half-moons. Place all the vegetables in the large bowl with the batter, and fold until all of the vegetables have been lightly coated.
- Heat a large skillet to medium-high heat, and add a tablespoon or two of oil to the pan. Place a thin, mostly flat, layer of vegetables in the hot oil (I found chopsticks to be the best tool when dealing with the long vegetable strands), and use the back your spatula to flatten a little. Repeat, if you have more room in your skillet. Let the pakoras pan fry until you can see some crispy browning on the edges, then flip and use your spatula to press it down. After a couple minutes, remove from the heat. Continue until all the batter is used, baking sure the pan stays well-oiled.
- Serve warm with your favorite dipping sauce.
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