Di Pain Frire (Mauritian Fried Bread)

Difficulty level: Medium

Di pain frire has massive nostalgia factor for me. Whenever my grandma used to make these, it was usually because she was expecting guests or hosting a party. It was definitely one of her party favourite recipes. The smell of the freshly battered and fried bread would always make my mouth water.

Di pain frire is typically served fresh with chatini pomme d’amour, which oddly translates to ‘candy apple’ when I looked it up on Google Translate. I can assure you it’s NOT candied apple. It’s actually a spicy tomato chutney or salsa. Some serve it chunky but it can also be can be blended into a sauce consistency. Chatini pomme d’amour cuts through the fattiness and adds a vibrant and fresh contrast.

This might be slightly unconventional as I’ve never seen my grandma make it this way, but I add cornflour to my recipe to make the batter lighter and crispier. However, it’s totally optional – you can completely omit if it’s unavailable.

What’s also great about this recipe, is that it’s naturally vegan. No eggs or dairy are needed to create the batter.

Servings

4-6

Prep Time

10-15 minutes

Cooking/Baking Time

15-20 minutes

Ingredients

6 ½ oz. gram (chickpea) flour
3 tbsp. plain flour, flour
1 tbsp. cornflour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 garlic clove
Small piece of fresh ginger teaspoon crushed ginger
½ tsp. salt, plus extra
8-10 fl. oz. water, room temperature
2 tbsp. spring onion, finely sliced
4 white bread slices, quartered
Oil for deep frying

Method

Sift the flours and baking powder together in a large mixing bowl.
Using a pestle and mortar, crush the garlic and ginger until you get a smooth paste. Add to the flour mixture along with the salt.
Pour a little water at a time and stir well until you get a thick pancake consistency. You may not need to use all the water.
Next, stir in the spring onion. Cover the bowl with clingfilm and set aside.
Use a heat a frying pan filled with oil over a medium-high heat.
Remove the clingfilm from the bowl. Stir in a little more water if the batter has thickened.
Dip the piece of bread in the batter, lift and shake gently to let the excess drip off then carefully place into the hot oil. Repeat for the other bread pieces until there’s no more space in the pan. Cook on 30 secs to a minute on each side or until golden.
Repeat the process in step 7 with the remaining bread and batter.
Serve fresh with chatini pomme d’amour. Enjoy!

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