Reader Recipes: Lou’s cheap n cheerful n very very tasty onion bhajis recipe

9 Comments

I’d like to share a ‘frugal recipe’ for onion bhajis. If you make a fairly big batch (as below) and freeze most of them, the ingredients total about £1.44 (4.5p each) which is not only bargainous but you have a ready supply of tasty bhajis. And at that price, they’re a cost effective addition to any meal.

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Onion + veggie bhajis recipe
Much as I like onions, they don’t much like me so I like to throw in other veggies too: finely sliced sticks of carrots, potatoes, aubergines, and courgettes all work well. But you can try whatever you like.
Ingredients:
~ 14 tablespoons plain flour
~ 1.5 tsp turmeric
~ 1.5 tsp cumin
~ 1.5 tsp garam masala
~ 1.5 tsp chilli powder
~ 1 tsp ground coriander
~ 1 tsp salt
~ 2 eggs
~ 4 tablespoons home-baking lemon juice (or the juice of a fresh lemon)
~ 6 tablespoons water
~ vegetables as desired eg: 1.5 onions, 3x carrots, 2 x potatoes, ½ an aubergine
~ vegetable oil
Method :
1. Sift the flour into a bowl and add the salt, herbs, spices and turmeric (which – I learnt from James Martin’s Saturday Kitchen – is a natural antiseptic and classed as a condiment rather than a spice).
2. Beat 2 eggs in another bowl, whisk in 4 tablespoons of home-baking lemon juice (or the juice of a fresh lemon) and 6 tablespoons of water.
3. Stir the egg mixture into the flour mixture to make a thick batter (if it’s too thick and dry, add more water a tablespoon at a time until you get a thick, runny batter mixture) and leave for 5 mins.
4. Slice the onions, carrots, potatoes and other vegetables you may be using into fine sticks, then stir thoroughly into the batter.
5. Heat some vegetable oil in a frying pan/saucepan then place a tablespoon of the veggie batter into the oil, and fry for 2 minutes before turning over for another 2 minutes.
6. Cook a few bhajis at a time (in batches) and drain well on kitchen paper.

Enjoy!

Lou.

To see your favourite frugal or cheap recipe here, email it to jackmonroe@live.co.uk

Categories: Recipes & Food

9 Comments »

    • very welcome, definitely one to share. I’ve ‘tried and tested’ this recipe many times and only recently realised how good value it is. It’s certainly very tasty (particularly if you’re generous on the chilli powder) :O)
      Lou (aka LardButty)

      Reply

    • yes Stephanie, I use 14 tablespoons and 2 eggs – the ingredients as above and it works fine.
      The original Asda recipe was 175g plain flour and one egg but a) I don’t have weighing scales and convert dry ingredients into tablespoons (2oz / 50g equals 4 tablespoons, etc) and b) I rounded up the quantities to make a bigger batch and freeze them. Hope you enjoy!
      Lou (aka LardButty)

      Reply

  4. Homemade onion bhajis are so easy and lovely! I make onion bhajis with gram flour (chickpea flour) which means an egg is not required. If you don’t eat / want to use egg you may like this recipe:

    1 red and 1 white onion, finely sliced
    2 cloves of garlic, mashed or garlic powder
    1 thumb of ginger, finely chopped or ginger powder
    0.5 tsp turmeric
    0.5 tsp garam masala
    1 tsp chilli flakes / powder (optional)
    1 tsp ground cumin
    100g gram flour
    60-80ml water
    Sunflower or vegetable oil
    Salt

    FInely slice onions and place in bowl ensuring slices seperate

    Add spices, garlic, salt and flour to the bowl and mix up with onions

    Add 1 tsp of oil and water to make a batter

    Mix together fully coating onions – add more water if necessary

    Heat oil in frying pan and add small amounts of mixture – if not deep fat frying turn as necessary.

    Reply
  7. Pingback: Lardbutty goes domestic – home cooked onion bhajis | Lou's blog

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