Keerai Vadai : Deep Fried Fritters Made With Green Amaranth Leaves

Green leafy vegetables are very nutritious and provide most of the minerals and vitamins required by us. However children do not eat normally prepared green leafy vegetables and discard them in their plate. Cooking the green leaves differently and tastefully makes them eat and ask for more.

Here is one such recipe for making deep fried fritters with Green Amaranth leaves. In Tamil Language we call all green leaves as "Keerai" and the deep fried fritters are known as "Vadai". You can use not only the Green Amaranth leaves, but use any kind of edible leaves with this recipe.

Please see the following instructions on how to make this tasty "Keerai Vadai".

• One bunch of Green Amaranth leaves (About 250 grams)
• One medium sized Onion
• 2 Green Chillies (Adjust to your own taste)
• About 100 grams of Chickpea flour
• 3 teaspoons of Rice Flour
• One teaspoon of Cumin seed powder
• One teaspoon of Fennel seed powder
• One teaspoon of Red Chilli powder (Adjust to your own taste)
• One teaspoon of Turmeric Powder
• Half a teaspoon of Asafoetida powder
• Salt to taste

• First you have to remove the hard stems from the green amaranth leaves. You can plant the stems in your garden or in a pot and It will grow and give you more green leaves
• Roughly chop the green leaves and keep aside in a wide pan

• Finely chop the onion and green chillies and add them to the chopped Amaranth leaves

• Add the rice flour and other spice powders and salt with Chickpea flour and mix well.
• Do not add any water

• Add the chickpea flour with other ingredients to the Amaranth leaves in the pan
• Mix everything together in the pan. If required add little bit of water so that the mix can be shaped by hand without breaking
• If the mix seems very dry and separates, add little amount of water. If it is watery and did not hold shape, add little bit of chickpea flour
• Take a lemon sized mix in your hand and shape into flattened balls as in the picture. It is very easy
• You can make few flattened ball shaped pieces beforehand and keep them in a plate

• Place a frying pan over medium flame and add sufficient cooking oil for deep frying
• When the oil is heated, add one piece and check. If the temperature of oil seems ok, then you can add 4 to 5 pieces at a time to the oil.
• Turn over the fritters few times in oil so that both sides are evenly cooked

• Once the outer shell of the fritters are deep fried to a dark brown and no longer bubbles in the oil, you can take them out with a strainer.
• Drain out excess oil and transfer over absorbent food-grade paper

Serve hot as evening snack with coffee or tea. Everybody will love it and ask for more