Learn how to make a popular street food, masala fries. These are spicy and tangy, and best served with an array of chutneys.
Who doesn’t love fries? Add some masala paste and some spices to it and you’re in for a winner.
Masala fries are a common Indian street food or appetiser. It’s always one dish I order, and there’s a huge variety in the way it’s made. These masala fries are loaded with spices and often served dry to keep them crisp. The spices along with the masala paste provide a good amount of heat and depth. There is a mix of salty, spicy, sweet and sour which make these masala fries insanely more-ish.
Masala Paste
For this recipe, I use a masala paste that can be made from scratch. This forms your base and will provide a ton of flavour. I’ll run through some of the key ingredients:
- Banana shallots – these are more mild than onions and will provide a subtle sweetness without being overpowering
- Dried red chilli – soak these in boiling water for 5-10 minutes to rehydrate. However no need to do this if you’re using fresh chillies
- Lemongrass – this will provide flavour and aroma, I highly recommend using it. Bash the lemongrass with the back of a knife, and peel off the outer woody layer. Slice the rest of the lemongrass and add it to the food processor with the remaining ingredients
- Chaat masala – this will add saltiness and sourness as it contains dried mango powder as well as several other spices
- Garam masala – this is a mixture of ground roasted whole spices. Hence It will add heat and depth
- Dark soy sauce – this will provide flavour and colour
- Chilli oil – optional for additional heat. My chilli oil recipe can be found on my Instagram highlights
Masala fries
Ingredients
Ingredients:
- 500 g frozen oven fries I air-fried mine
- 1 tbsp oil
- 2 banana shallots/1 red onions
- 4 cloves garlic
- 1 inch piece of ginger
- 1 red chilli/dried red chilli for dried, soak in boiling water for 5-10 mins. Add 2 chillies for more heat
- Half of a lemon grass stick bashed open and outer woody outer layer removed
- 3 medium tomatoes
- 0.5 tsp cumin powder
- 0.5 tsp coriander powder
- 1 tsp kashmiri chilli powder
- 0.5 tsp garam masala
- 1 tsp chaat masala
- 1 tsp dried kasuri methi
- 2 tsp dark soy sauce
- 2 tsp honey/syrup
- 1.5 tsp salt
Instructions
Method:
- Blitz shallots, garlic, ginger, chilli and lemongrass in a processor until a thick paste, add a tbsp of water if needed to get the processor going
- Sauté this paste in oil on a medium heat, constantly stirring to prevent burning, sauté continuously for 2-3 minutes
- In the same food processor, add your tomatoes and blitz
- To your onion mix, add the blitzed tomatoes, and all the dry spices, salt, and dark soy sauce. Don’t add the kasuri methi until the end.
- This will start as a runny mixture, continue to sauté until thickened to a paste consistency – roughly 10 minutes. This is the time to get your chips into the oven/air fryer.
- Once the chips have crisped up, crush your methi in your hand and add to the masala
- Add chips and toss to combine. If you didn’t use lemongrass, add a squeeze of lemon
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