Directions

Kale Pakoda

1. Preheat oven to 180deg C fan.
2. To make our kale chaat remove any thick stalks from the middle of the kale leaves. This is important as the stalks can be quick thick and chewy. Now roughly chop the leaves into small pieces.
3. Add chopped onion, potatoes, ginger and 1/2tsp salt to the kale and set aside for 5 minutes. This will help draw the water out of the kale which will later help bind the dry ingredients.
4. In a separate bowl mix the chickpea flour, cornflour, carom seeds, cumin seeds, fennel seeds, coriander powder, chilli powder, turmeric powder and rest of salt. Mix all the dry ingredients well. Now add 2tbsp of olive oil and mix again.
5. Now add half of the dry mix to the kale mix and knead with hands. You will find that there is enough moisture in the kale to start making a sticky dough.
6. Add the rest of the flour and keep kneading with hands (it can get a bit messy). Do not add water. If the mix feels too dry, leave for another 5 minutes till the salt draws out more moisture from the kale.
7. Once the kale and flour mix feels sticky enough to be able to make small balls, slightly wet your palms and start making really small balls of the mix. They don’t have to be perfectly round. In fact it looks nicer if they are rough looking.
8. Now in on a baking tray, lay some greaseproof paper and spray all over with the light fry oil spray.
9. Lay the small kale dough balls over the baking tray. You may find that you need to wash hands a few times in the middle of making the balls as the mix can get quite sticky.
10. Once all the balls are made, spray them again with the oil spray (if not using an oil spray, you can brush them lightly with oil).
11. Keep in the oven for 20 minutes.
12. After 20 minutes your kale chaat pakodas should come out nice and crispy.

Sweet potato fries

1. Once you’ve put your kale chaat pakodas in the oven, we can start working on the sweet potato fries.
2. Mix the sweet potato cubes or sticks with olive oil and sprinkle the salt all over.
3. In a flat oven tray, lay greaseproof paper and lay out the fries. They should not overlap and should be laid out flat on the tray.
4. Bake along with the kale pakodas. They take about the same time 19-20minutes as the kale pakodas.

Assembling

1. The fun part of this kale chaat recipe is in the assembly. Make sure you have the yoghurt, Tickly Tamarind chutney (you can thin this down with water a little bit as well) and spicy coriander chutney at hand.
2. In a flat dish start with drizzling half of the yoghurt, Tickly Tamarind chutney and coriander chutney on the base of the platter. I like to do this as the kale pakodas then absorb those lovely chutney flavours from the bottom as well.
3. Now arrange the kale pakodas all over the plate and with the sweet potato fries or cubes.
4. Now start topping with the rest of the yoghurt, Tickly Tamarind chutney and coriander chutney. Adjust the amount of the chutneys to your preference.
5. Top with pomegranate seeds and voila your crispy baked kale chaat is ready to be enjoyed by the whole family.