Shrimp pakora (shrimp fritters) Indian prawn pakora

Shrimp pakora recipe – Shrimp fritters popularly known as prawn pakora are a street snack in some parts of India. These crisp fried shrimps are relished as a an appetizer or as a tea time snack. These are mostly eaten with a spicy chutney or sauce. Basically pakoras are aromatic crisp fried Indian fritters made with gram flour, spices and herbs. These can be made with any ingredient like onions, veggies, lentils, chicken or even with shrimps.

Apart from the onion pakora & bread pakora, these shrimp fritters too are quite popular in the Andhra restaurant menus. There are quite a few different ways these are made.

I follow my onion pakoda & chicken pakora recipes to make these shrimp fritters. These come out so aromatic, flavorful, crisp and delicious.

The recipe needs only a few basic ingredients like onions, your favorite herbs, spices and more importantly some fresh or frozen shrimps. However I have made these with tiger prawns.

These shrimp fritters are quite easy to make and they can also be grilled in a oven.

Preparation for Shrimp pakora

1. Peel, devein and rinse the shrimps or prawns very well. Drain water completely.

2. Marinate prawns with red chili powder, salt and turmeric. Keep this aside for 10 minutes. I also added a bit of lemon juice.

How to make shrimp pakora

3. Heat oil in a deep pan or kadai.

4. Add ginger garlic paste, chilies, curry leaves, sliced onions, flour, garam masala and a bit of salt. Mix gently to coat the prawns well with all the ingredients.

5. I forgot to add garam masala at this step so I added later. I did not add water, the moisture from the prawns and lemon juice was sufficient to bind the prawns well. But if your mixture looks dry, just sprinkle a tsp of water and mix.

6. When the oil is hot, turn the flame to medium high, take each prawn along with some onions and curry leaves batter and drop it in the oil. Do not add too many at one time.

7. Prawns tend to get burnt faster, so take care. Flip them to the other side and fry till golden. Fry all the prawns in batches

8. This is an optional step. When you finish frying all the prawn fritters, add them back to hot oil and repeat frying them for a minute, this gives a good crunchy texture to the pakora. Drain them on a kitchen tissue

Serve them with a sauce or mint chutney.

If you have ever eaten an Indian pakora then you know what are those key ingredient that go into making these. However I have some substitutions for you with which you can try.

Tips

Gram flour or besan is used in most of the Indian fritters as it lends a unique nutty aroma. If you do not have it then, you may use yellow corn flour.

Curry leaves or mint: I prefer my shrimp pakoras with curry leaves & mint. You can use any one or both. Both give different flavors to the fritters.

Garam masala is a Indian spice powder. If you do not have it, then you may use some curry powder. Here I have used very little garam masala. Don’t use a lot of it for sea foods else the original flavor of the sea food would be lost.

These shrimp pakoras can be also be grilled in an oven. Spray some oil ones the fritters are done.

Do adjust all the spices to suit your taste.

More shrimp & prawn recipes
prawn curry
Shrimp Biryani
Chilli prawns

This post if from the archives, first published in July 2014. Republished in June 2020.