Aktar Islam made pakora on one of the Perfect…programmes. I noticed that he didn’t make the batter very runny. Whenever I’ve made pakora I always have very runny batter which makes a mess of the cooker and I also end up with lots of leftover watery batter. So I decided to change my method based on what he does.

I had some leftover medium-grated potato which has been wrung in a teatowel to get rid of excess water. I added finely sliced onion and enough gram flour to lightly cover all the veg. To flavour I added salt, turmeric, cumin, chilli powder, garlic and ginger pastes. Then to slacken the mixture just slightly I used fresh lemon juice and NO WATER at all. I sprinkled a little bicarbonate of soda over and mixed thoroughly. I then put flattened (so that they cook through without leaving any uncooked batter) dessertspoonfuls into hot oil to fry gently. The result was very good but they did absorb a lot of oil so I will probably leave out the bicarb next time.