Patnam bakoda (fritters)- air fryer recipe

Patnam bakoda ( also called madras bakoda , medhu bakoda) is a traditionally deep fried savory fritter. It was my grandpa’s favorite snack and now my husband’s favorite snack as well. It is easy to make and takes under 10 minutes of prep work. I used my mom’s recipe but referred to this recipe for the air fryer instructions and modified it a little bit. With the air fryer much less oil was used and it turned out pretty tasty as well!

Ingredients

Pottukadalai  ( roasted dehusked split bengal gram ) flour- 1/2 cup 

Rice flour- 1/2 cup 

Besan (gram flour split brown dehusked chickpea flour) - 1/4 cup 

Baking soda - 1/4 tsp 

Butter / ghee melted - 3 tbsp 

Chopped onion - 1/2 cup 

Ginger chopped - small pieces - 1/2 tbsp

Green chillies - 1 deseeded and cut into small pieces 

Curry leaf  - chopped - 6 to 8 leaves 

Salt to taste 

Vegetable or canola oil in an oil spritzer ( this is a must for the air fryer !)

Instructions 

Preheat the air fryer to 360F ( 180 C)

1. In a large mixing bowl add the ghee/ butter and whisk in the baking soda 
2. Now add the different flours and mix well and then add in the rest of the ingredients and form a thick dough .The ghee itself is used to bind all of these ingredients but if needed sprinkle a little bit of water at a time ( I used perhaps 2 tbsp)
   
3. Roll these into small balls ( size of a small plum) and place on a plate and spritz with some vegetable oil to coat it 
   
   
4. Place these balls of dough in the air fryer pan and spritz a little bit more oil on it 
   
5. Fry the dough for a total of 10 minutes at 360F. Mid way through at 5 minutes pause the fryer and open the fry basket and turn over the pakora and spritz the other side with oil . This is to ensure both sides brown evenly. Then resume the fryer for the rest of the 10 minutes 
6. Patnam bakoda is ready to serve . It goes well with coconut chutney