The Pakora Party Nobody Plans
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There is a specific kind of afternoon that every Indian knows.
The sky goes grey. Not gradually — it just decides. The air shifts from warm to something heavier, cooler, carrying that smell that is impossible to describe but instantly recognisable. And somewhere in the city, in a hundred kitchens at once, someone opens a cupboard and reaches for the besan (Gram flour).
Because when it rains, we make pakoras.
Not because a recipe told us to. Because something older than habit tells us to.
The Pakora Party Nobody Plans
The best ones are never organised in advance.
Someone sends a message on the family group at 3pm: "It's raining here, feel like having pakoras, lets meet." By 4pm, people are arriving, damp, laughing, carrying nothing except themselves and maybe a box of mithai someone picked up on the way.
The kitchen fills up first. Someone is chopping onions — fat rings, the kind that hold together in hot oil. Someone else is slicing green chillies. The batter is being whisked with a confidence that only comes from doing this a hundred times before. Ajwain goes in. Salt. A pinch of red chilli powder. The consistency being judged by eye, not measurement.
And the oil is heating in the kadai.
That sound — the first test piece of batter dropped into hot oil, that immediate, confident sizzle — it travels from the kitchen to wherever the rest of the group is sitting. And everybody knows. The pakoras are coming.
In the other room, the conversation is happening. The kind that meanders for hours. Work problems, family news, that thing someone said at a wedding three months ago that still needs discussing. Tea is passed around. Or coffee. Probably both, because someone always wants coffee when everyone else has tea.
The pakoras arrive in batches. Hot. Impossibly hot. Nobody waits for them to cool. Fingers get burned. Nobody cares.
There is a particular pleasure in eating something straight from the oil, standing at a coffee table that's too low, holding a plate with one hand, talking with the other. No ceremony. No particular order. Just the rain outside, the hiss from the kitchen, and the fact that this is, in some quiet and unspoken way, exactly where everyone wants to be.
Getting the Pakora Right
The pakora is a forgiving thing. Batter too thick? Still fine. Onions sliced a little uneven? Fine. But there are a few things that make the difference between a good batch and a great one.
The batter consistency matters. It should coat the back of a spoon and fall off in a slow, thick ribbon — not watery, not paste. Too thin and the coating won't hold; too thick and the inside won't cook through.
Ajwain is not optional. The carom seeds do something to the flavour of a pakora that no substitute replicates. A generous pinch, crushed lightly between your fingers before it goes in.
Heat the oil slowly. Don't rush to temperature. Let it come up steadily. Test with a small drop of batter — it should rise to the surface immediately and sizzle with confidence. If it sinks, the oil is too cool. If it darkens within seconds, too hot. The right temperature holds the batter in place and cooks it evenly from outside in.
Don't crowd the kadai. Too many pieces at once drops the oil temperature and you end up with something soft rather than crisp. Fry in batches of four to six. This is why the kitchen keeps producing them in waves — it's not slowness, it's the right way.
Drain on a wire rack if you have one. Paper towels trap steam underneath and soften the bottom of the pakora. A rack keeps the crust intact all the way around.
The Oil
Here is where it gets interesting.
Stand beside a kadai of hot groundnut oil and you notice something. The aroma is subtle but unmistakable. Not strong enough to dominate the food, but present enough to become part of it. The pakora doesn't just cook in the oil — it carries a little of that character with it onto the plate.
For many households, groundnut oil was the supporting flavour behind the pakoras, bondas, and vadas they grew up eating. It brings a familiarity that many people recognise instantly, even if they can't quite explain why.
This isn't accidental. Indian kitchens traditionally fried in groundnut oil not just because it was locally available, but because it behaved well. It holds temperature steadily, it doesn't overwhelm the food, and it produces a crust that is crisp without feeling heavy.
The cold pressed version — oil extracted without heat or chemical solvents — keeps more of what was naturally present in the groundnut. The aroma you notice at the kadai, the warmth it adds to fried food, the way it doesn't leave an oily aftertaste: these come from the oil staying closer to what the groundnut originally was.
Refined oils are processed to be neutral and consistent. The aroma is removed. The colour is standardised. The naturally occurring compounds are significantly reduced. The result is an oil that performs reliably but contributes nothing to flavour.
Cold pressed groundnut oil is high in oleic acid — a monounsaturated fat that makes it more resistant to breakdown at frying temperatures than oils high in polyunsaturated fats. This matters practically: the oil stays stable through a full frying session without degrading quickly, which means it performs well from the first batch to the last.
A note on reuse: even a stable oil should not be reused indefinitely. Two sessions is a reasonable limit. After that, discard and start fresh — especially when you're cooking for a full room of people.
The Full Circle
At some point in the afternoon, the rain slows. Not stops — just slows to that quieter, steady kind that means it is going to be here for a while. Someone makes another round of tea. The conversation has moved through three different topics and landed somewhere honest. The plate of pakoras has been refilled twice.
There is very little that requires improvement about this afternoon.
But the pakora was better because the oil was right. Not dramatically, not obviously — the way a good supporting actor doesn't steal the scene but makes the whole thing land better.
That's what a good oil does. It doesn't announce itself. It just makes the food taste the way you wanted it to.
Our cold pressed groundnut oil is pressed in our own unit in Bengaluru, from high-quality groundnuts, without heat or chemical solvents. It has a natural, nutty aroma and behaves exactly as groundnut oil should at frying temperatures.
Shop Cold Pressed Groundnut Oil →
References
1. Premalatha, R.P. et al. Comparative evaluation of phytochemical, nutritional, in vitro antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties of cold pressed oils in India. Scientific Reports, 2025.
2. Choe E & Min DB. Mechanisms and factors for edible oil oxidation. Comprehensive Reviews in Food Science and Food Safety, 2006.