Bread has played, and continues to play, a crucial role in most of the snacks hawked at the streets of Delhi. Whether it’s in the form of a bun in an aloo tikki burger and with pao bhaji or as a makkhan (butter) smeared slice of toast served with a fiery masala omelet, there is no escaping this delicious lump of carb. One such quintessentially North Indian bread-based street snack is bread pakora. And here’s why, if you haven’t already, you should be biting into the snack.

If you’re drooling at the thought of batter-fried pieces of bread stuffed with spiced potato, you need no introduction to this marvel, but for the uninitiated, a bread pakora is essentially a fritter made by sandwiching spiced potato or paneer (Indian cottage cheese) between to triangles of a bread slice and then covering the sandwich in a gram flour batter and deep-frying. Yes, it is as decadent as it sounds. What’s more? There are a number of ways of layering this pakora, with variants ranging from potato stuffed, cheese stuffed, and paneer stuffed, or even plain pakoras. But what really makes this combination so iconic?

The Pakora Connect

We all related a little when a desperate Bitto Sharma (Ranveer Singh in Band Baaja Baraat) in order to prove the worth of his words swears upon a tomato ketchup-laden piece of bread pakora, saying, “bread pakore ki kasam (I swear on bread pakora)”.

Source: YRF

This is majorly because of our inherent bias for anything that comes out of a large street side kadhai, a.k.a. a pakora. This bias is not limited to North India, it spans to the bajji and bhajiya loving folk in the Southern half as well, because much like any other widely loved food, pakoras engage our spice palate with its batter and gives an added pleasure with that deep fried crunch.

Now, add to the pakora template a fluffy slice of bread and you’ve got yourself a groundbreaking duo. And who doesn’t like a batch of that with some chaat masala and coriander chutney? In short, if you like bread, a little spice, and all things crispy, you need to try this Indian prodigy that is the bread pakora at least once in your lifetime!

Craving some piping hot bread pakora and chutney? Here’s an easy bread pakora recipe to get you going! You’re welcome.

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