Palak Spinach Bonda or Bajji

Bonda and Bajjis occupy a special place in the South Indian cuisine. Here in Bangalore, Bondas and Bajjis satisfy the evening time snack hunger of countless Bangaloreans. It is hard to imagine life without all the little shops and carts which serve snacks ranging from Charmuri, Tomato/Pineapple Masala, Pani Puri, Masala Puri to hot Capsicum Bajjis, Aloo Bonda and Masala Vada. Many offer these at a very cheap price and even the middle class families can treat themselves to variety of snacks in the evening time.

I recently prepared Palak/Spinach Bonda/Bajji. My family found it tasty and different than other better known Bonda/Bajji variants and I decided to post the recipe here. Do try it out and let me know how it fared in satisfying your snack hunger 🙂

Time to Prepare : 20-30 min

How to Make Palak/Spinach Bonda Bajji:

1. Finely chop the Onion, Green Chillies and the Palak/Spinach leaves. Keep aside.

2. Mix all the chopped vegetables from step 1 with Red Chilli Powder, Cooking Soda, Salt, Corn Flour, Rice Flour and Besan or Bengal Gram Flour and prepare a semi-solid dough to let you comfortably deep fry the Bonda/Bajji in oil. Do not add any water to the dough. The Palak/Spinach leaves and Onions themselves supply the water content required for the mixture.

3. When preparing the dough, make sure that the Besan or Bengal Gram Flour is added incrementally (do not add in one go) making sure the final dough mixture has more vegetables than flour. High vegetable content gives better taste to the Bonda/Bajji. Keep aside the dough for 10 minutes.

4. Heat the Oil in a pan enough to prepare for deep frying. Now take a small portion of the dough in hand and have Bonda shape, drop into the Oil and deep fry in low flame.

5. When fried and ready, serve Palak/Spinach Bonda or Bajji hot with Sauce or Chutney.