Onion Bhajis

Emma Bailey (8 mos old) is asking, "What the heck are onion bhajis???

One of my daughters, Jamie, is in town for a couple of days before she and her family move to Guam. We have a deal while she is here that every other night it's her turn in the kitchen. I buy the supplies - she gets to experiment. She thumbed through the The Complete Book of Raw Food and found something that sounded different: Onion Bhajis. What is a bhahi? We had to look it up on the internet just to know what we were trying to mimic. ha ha. Apparently onion bhajis are an Indian, deep-fried oniony appetizer. Since we've never tried one, we can't say how close these came, but we did conclude that they were worth the effort.

The recipe:

Onion Bhajis
2 c walnuts, soaked for 1 hr
1 c mushrooms
4 sun-dried tomatoes, soaked at least 2 hrs
2 tsp paprika
20-30 stalks fresh cilantro
10-20 stalks fresh parsley
1 clove garlic
1 red pepper, seeds and stalks removed
1 dessertspoon garam masala (we substituted this with a bit of curry pwdr)
pinch cayenne pepper
2 c finely chopped red onion, divided

First we put the walnuts, mushrooms, tomatoes, paprika, cilantro, parsley, garlic, red pepper, masala (or curry), cayenne and 1 c of the red onion through the juicer with the blank plate. (You can put this all through the food processor if you don't have a juicer.)

It looked like a sticky mess at this point. We then added the last cup of red onion, which had been finely chopped. The batter seemed like it needed a little salt and a few more sundried tomatoes to satisfy, so we took the liberty to make those adjustments.

Then we scooped the batter out on Teflex sheets and stuck them in the dehydrator. The recipe says they can go anywhere from 8-24 hours (that's quite a range if you ask me). We only had time for about 9 hours before it was dinnertime, and that ended up being just right.

We had a little dilemna with how to eat them. How are real bhajis eaten? We couldn't really figure that one out - but we decided to fold them into small Ezekiel tortillas with chopped lettuce, spiralled carrots and zucchini, and hummus. We made a little salad on the side with some marrinated cauliflower. I'm not sure if those familiar with Indian food would be impressed - but we were certainly satisfied with the meal. Thanks, Jamie!

Emma was happy the meal was over - it seemed we took too long in the kitchen tonight. Is there anything greater than a grandbaby falling asleep on your shoulder after a good meal? Nope.