One thing I have discovered is that if a certain type of food ingredient, be it vegetable or fruit, exists in plenty then people across the world will come up with a whole lot of different ways to cook and eat it. Take the case of green chillies. One very popular way of using the milder (heat-wise) chillies is to stuff them and then steam cook/ bake/grill/ roast/ crumb and pan-fry them or batter and deep fry them. The filling or stuffing used in the chillies is only limited by imagination and what’s locally available.

Indian cuisine and chillies go hand-in-hand, and it’s not surprising that we also have our versions of stuffed chillies, “versions” because the ingredients that go into chillies depend on which part of India is stuffing and cooking the chilli!

Apart, from the North Indian style of filling bell peppers with seasoned and spiced rice, meat or potatoes and Paneer (cottage cheese) and then pan cooking/ frying it, we also stuff long green mildly hot chillies and then crumb coat or dip them in batter and then fry them. These we call Bhajia (in the North) or Bhajji (in the South) and are our version of chilly fritters.

Now the way these battered and fried chillies are prepared tends to differ as you move from the North of India to the South. In the North, generally, a filling is made of potatoes or Paneer and stuffed into the prepared chillies before dipping them into the batter and frying them. In the South, you might find these chillies filled with spiced peanut or dried coconut but mostly, the chillies are slit and de-seeded, then dipped into a batter which also fills the slit chillies and becomes the “filling”, before being deep fried till cooked and crisp.

As for the chillies we use, down South in Kerala where I come from, these battered and fried chillies are made with a variety of chilli that is locally known as “Thondan Mulagu”. In the neighbouring state of Tamilnadu, I have heard the chillies used for this being referred to as “Ooty chillies”.

In Kerala, some people like their chillies really hot and fiery and do not understand the purpose of making anything with chillies if it doesn’t blow the roof off your mouth! We however, like most people, prefer to have our chillies very mild so that we can actually savour the Bhajji or fritters when we bite into them, rather than have our chillies “bite” us back!!

So do use, whatever variety of mild chilly/ pepper that is available where you live, and please de-seed them too and your tongue will thank you.You never know when you will find that one supposedly mild chilly that turns out to be the one which will pack such a fiery punch sending you teary-eyed desperately looking for something to put out the fire in your mouth. These Bhajji or chilly fritters are meant to be mildly spicy and this is achieved by adding red chilli powder to the batter in which the chillies are dipped. 

Chilly Fritters:

Ingredients:

Long green chillies- 10 nos
Lime - 1 nos
Gram flour(Besan flour) - 1 cup
Chilly powder - 1 pinch
Turmeric powder - 1 pinch
Baking soda - 1 pinch
Salt - As required
Oil - for deep frying

Method:

Preparation Method Chilli Bajji Recipe

1)Clean the chillies. Cut into half, take out the seeds inside.

2)Mix together besan flour with salt, chilli powder, turmeric powder and pinch of baking soda to dosa batter consistency.

3)Take lime water in a bowl and add a pinch of salt in it.

4)Put the chilles in it for marination for 10 mins.

5)Take them out and dip them in the besan batter.

6)Deep fry them in hot oil on medium heat until crisp and cooked. 

7)Remove from the oil and drain them in kitchen tissue. Serve hot with tomato sauce or sauce of your choice and Enjoy!

Go get 'em cooked up right now!!