Sweet Potato Fritters (Kanga Phodi Recipe)

Sweet Potato Fritters (Kanga Phodi Recipe)

Sooooo so yummm these are, they're spicy from the outside batter, sweet on the inside from sweet potato, crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside. It's just perfect when made perfectly with fresh sweet potatoes.

Perfect tea time, starter/appetizer. 

Kanga phodi in Konkani. There's also another way to make kanga phodi with just gram flour batter

Just like this you can make potato, raw banana phodis.


Ingredients:

  • 1 sweet potato
  • Salt to taste
  • Oil for deep frying

Please use freshhhh sweet potatoes to make these for the best phodis/fritters for best tasting phodis.

To make the masala:

  • 1/2 cup rice (any short grained variety should do)
  • 3-4 dried red chillies 
  • Tamarind - a white chana sized 
  • A pinch of crystal asafoetida
  • Salt to taste
  • 2 teaspoons of gram flour (optional)

Serves: 2

Prep Time: 8-10 minutes

Cooking Time: 6-9 minutes

Total Time taken: 25 minutes


Method Of Preparation:

Preparing the batter/masala:

1. Soak rice for 30 minutes.

2. Soak crystal asafoetida in water to make it soft.

3. Wash well, grind with dried red chilies + tamarind + crystal asafoetida + salt into a coarse paste using just enough water to make a paste. We need thick masala that's not too smooth.

Try grinding without water first to powder dried red chillies with rice, then add in water to make a paste.

4. Transfer the ground batter into a bowl.

5. Keep it thick to semi-thick in consistency.

6. Check & adjust salt.


Preparing fritters/phodi:

1. Peel sweet potato.

2. Make medium thick slices & put them in a bowl of water, they otherwise oxidize. 

I prefer medium thick slices, too thin & they become hard, too thick & they may not cook through to give you softttt soft phodis.

Other ways to chop sweet potato to make kanga phodi.

3. Add slices to a bowl, add salt for taste, toss so that each slice gets enough salt to take it in.

4. Set it aside for 5 minutes, sweet potato slices take in salt during this time.

5. Meanwhile, heat up oil in a frying pan.

6. Add gram flour to the ground masala, mix well such that there are no clumps. Gram flour gives a little softness to the fritters which otherwise end up being very crispy, a little hard due to rice grains.

7. Add a tiny bit of water if needed to the ground masala to bring it to semi-thick consistency.

Semi-thick is important, if it's thick you'll have too much masala sticking to the slices. Watery masala will give you very less masala sticking to sweet potato slices.

If you happen to dilute the masala do add gram flour to thicken it.

8. Dip salted slices in the masala, deep fry them in oil.

9. Fry on medium heat on both sides. Flip once one side is cooked, repeat 2 times for even cooking.

High flame will give you crunchyyy, hard fritters, low flame could give you oily, uncooked fritters. For perfect cooking medium flame please.

10. How do you know fritters are cooked through? The oil will stop bubbling once it's cooked through.

Do not over crowd the oil.

11. Fry all & enjoy hot.

They lose their crispiness & could become oily on cooling down but taste delicious nonetheless.


P.S: If you don't have crystal asafoetida use asafoetida powder. 


More phodi recipes here:

Drumstick Fritters (Mashinga Sanga Bajo)

Raw Jackfruit Fritters (Kadgi Phodi)

Deep Fried Eggplant/Brinjal Fritters (Gulla Phodi/Bajo)

Cauliflower Fritters (Cauliflower Bajo)

Breadfruit Fritters (Jeev Kadge Phodi)

Taro Roots Fritters (Kaale Alvaa Maddi Phodi)

Kantola/ Teasel Gourd Fritters (Phagla Phodi)

Pickled Bamboo Shoot Fritters (Kirla Bajo)

Bitter Gourd Fritters Recipe (Karathe Bajo)

Crispy, Crunchy, Spicy Vegetable Fritters (Bajo) - capsicum, raw banana

Similarly, make gointa phodi - pointed gourd, potato - batate phodi, capsicum - donne mirsange phodi, Nendran banana - nendra kele phodi, raw banana - kele phodi, bajji chilli - mirsange bajo, pumpkin - dudde phodi, ridge gourd - gosale phodi. You can practically make any veggie fritters using the masala below, in a similar way. 

Tags: Chauthi cooking, ganesh chaturthi, festival cooking.