Cheese Pakora

Which can be somewhat obscenely translated as cheese balls.

How I miss those days when every second syllable wasn't a sexual innuendo.

Anyway, so this is a midnight snack I made two days back with one leftover cube of cheese, half a tomato, a couple green chilies, and I nearly added a quarter red onion, but then I thought the better of it. But you totally could.

Here's a note on the cheese though, people. Our girl Rhea insists this is mild cheddar, but I'm not convinced. Even really mild cheddar. Still, it's the most inexpensive and widely availble cheese found in my neck of the woods, so I use it. But I'll tell you what, if you want make grilled-cheese toast with this, don't expect it to melt obligingly. It's a stubborn cheese. Doesn't soften till the toast is burned crisp.

This is the mysterious cheese. Marketed by Amul, labelled 'processed cheese'. It is first sliced off the small cube, then diced till it is in slivers.

Here is the cheese, in tiny slivers, mixed with sliced green chilies and chopped tomatoes. Feel free to add onions if that's your thing.

Then, because we are not scared of cholesterol at all, we break an egg on it. The egg has an annoying tendency to slither off to the sides.

Then we add salt, pepper, a dash of anything else you might like (sometimes I add a bit of Worcester sauce, because you haven't cooked till you've killed your tastebuds with hotness). We beat it once, then add a tablespoon of flour, fold it in, the add three tablespoons of milk. And beat till frothy. In the absence of a beater, a fork will suffice.

That's the first pakora. Look at how light and fluffy it is! It almost literally melted in my mouth. The downside was that it was f-a-a-a-r too insubstantial for my liking. Crunch, and gone.

These are considerably more bulky, because I went and added more flour and then realised we had no more eggs left to balance the effect out. BUT, the bulkiness makes the outer shell brown and crispy, while keeping the core a heaven of melted, gooey cheese. So next time, I will deliberately add more flour!

And now for something totally amazing. Take a look at this. Doesn't it look exactly like a perched stork (or egret or what-have-you)? It's like seeing Jesus in a cheese sandwich, only cooler, 'cause instead of feeling all reverential towards a cheese sandwich because it's Jesus, you can chomp this down with a giggle.