It’s September and its the Mega Marathon Month. :-) Welcoming you all to this Cooking Carnival. Guess what theme I picked for this entire month? It’s the Chaat / Appetizers / Snacks. So starting today and for next 30 days, I will be sharing kids friendly (yes kids friendly too, I will be sharing how I serve these chaats for Vaandu) yummylicious, lip smacking, sweet and spicy, savory snacks and chaats from all over India. I hope you all enjoy and I am looking forward to hear your thoughts and comments.
The first chaat recipe that I am going to post for this marathon is Cutlets – these deep fried or shallow fried goodies are perfect tea time snack. It is pretty much similar to tikkis. Like many other recipes, cutlets can be prepared in zillion ways. But here is my super simple kid’s friendly deep fried beet root cutlet. Cutlets are perfect recipe where you can sneak in any veggies. With cookie cutters you can try different shapes and wow your kids and everyone.
Cutlets – this very small word takes be back to my college days. Cutlets were one of the staple evening snacks in our college canteen. It was our staple order too, during my final semester, pretty much me and friends used to go to canteen all evenings and chit chat with a cup of tea and this cutlet. Nothing can be the combo of cutlet, ketchup and a cup of tea and of course friends. Now I started to prepare the same for my kid by sneaking in different veggies.
When I selected the Chaat as my theme for this blogging marathon, the first recipe that I wrote down in my list was cutlet and this is the very first recipe that I cooked and clicked for this BM and here I am posting it for the first day.
Here is my star shaped little beet root cutlets,
Ingredients:
- Small Beetroots – 5 or 3 medium sized beetroots
- Medium Size Potato – 1
- Garam Masala – 1/4 tsp
- Red Chilli Powder – 1/4 tsp
- Chaat Masala – 1/4 tsp
- Salt – 1 tsp
- Finely Chopped Onion – 1/4 cup
- Chopped Cilantro – 2 tbsps
- Maida or All Purpose Flour – 1 tbsp
- Water – 1/4 cup
- Corn Starch – 1.5 tbsps
- Bread Crumbs – 1/4 cup (as required)
- Oil for frying.
Prep – Work:
- Wash the beetroots nicely and peel the skin. Boil the beets in pressure cooker or microwave or stovetop. If using pressure cooker, cook it by adding 3 cups of water for 2 whistles. If in microwave, steaming for about 12 minutes should work. Make sure the beets are soft and tender.
- Once cooked, remove them from water right away and let it sit for about 1 hour.
- Then grate them finely or mash them up. I grated the beets.
- Similar boil the potato in your preferred way and mash them roughly.
- Chop the onions and cilantro.
- Mix 1.5 tbsps of corn starch in 1/4 of water and set aside.
Steps:
- Add the grated beets, mashed potatoes, chopped onion, cilantro all the masalas and salt. Add the maida too.
- Mix them well and do not add any water.
- Mix the ingredients like this ball below.
- Now pinch about small lemon sized ball from the dough and press in your desired cookie cutter or you can shape into small balls and press them like tikki or into oval shapes.
- Repeat the same for the remaining dough.
- Parallel Task: Once you have pressed the cutlets into desired shape, you can heat the oil for frying.
- Meanwhile take the bread crumbs in a wide bowl and also stir the corn starch water and keep your working table ready.
- Now dip the shaped cutlets in the corn starch water and then coat them with bread crumbs generously.Repeat this for all the remaining cutlets.
- Once the oil is hot, turn it to medium heat and fry them slowly. I added about 4 in one batch.
- That’s it. Yummy cutlets are ready.
Serve them hot with ketchup.
Notes:
- After cooking beets and potatoes remove them from water. We want them moist but not overloaded with water content.
- Also if you feel the dough is little soggy, add more maida/APF.
- Adjust the salt and spices as per your preference.
- Instead of deep frying, you can shallow fry the cutlets too. As this is kiddo’s favorite and he prefers deep fried cutlets so I opted for deep frying.
- Other Variations:
- You can completely skip beets and add other veggies or mix other veggies along with beets to prepare veggie cutlets too.
Beetroot Cutlet
Ingredients
- Small Beetroots - 5 or 3 medium sized beetroots
- Medium Size Potato - 1
- Garam Masala - 1/4 tsp
- Red Chilli Powder - 1/4 tsp
- Chaat Masala - 1/4 tsp
- Salt - 1 tsp
- Finely Chopped Onion - 1/4 cup
- Chopped Cilantro - 2 tbsps
- Maida or All Purpose Flour - 1 tbsp
- Water - 1/4 cup
- Corn Starch - 1.5 tbsps
- Bread Crumbs - 1/4 cup as required
- Oil for frying.
Instructions
Prep - Work
- Wash the beetroots nicely and peel the skin. Boil the beets in pressure cooker or microwave or stovetop. If using pressure cooker, cook it by adding 3 cups of water for 2 whistles. If in microwave, steaming for about 12 minutes should work. Make sure the beets are soft and tender.
- Once cooked, remove them from water right away and let it sit for about 1 hour.
- Then grate them finely or mash them up. I grated the beets.
- Similar boil the potato in your preferred way and mash them roughly.
- Chop the onions and cilantro.
- Mix 1.5 tbsps of corn starch in 1/4 of water and set aside.
Steps
- Add the grated beets, mashed potatoes, chopped onion, cilantro all the masalas and salt. Add the maida too.
- Mix them well and do not add any water.
- Mix the ingredients like this ball below.
- Now pinch about small lemon sized ball from the dough and press in your desired cookie cutter or you can shape into small balls and press them like tikki or into oval shapes.
- Repeat the same for the remaining dough.
- Parallel Task: Once you have pressed the cutlets into desired shape, you can heat the oil for frying.
- Meanwhile take the bread crumbs in a wide bowl and also stir the corn starch water and keep your working table ready.
- Now dip the shaped cutlets in the corn starch water and then coat them with bread crumbs generously.Repeat this for all the remaining cutlets.
- Once the oil is hot, turn it to medium heat and fry them slowly. I added about 4 in one batch.
- That’s it. Yummy cutlets are ready.
- Serve them hot with ketchup.
Notes
Also if you feel the dough is little soggy, add more maida/APF.
Adjust the salt and spices as per your preference.
Instead of deep frying, you can shallow fry the cutlets too. As this is kiddo’s favorite and he prefers deep fried cutlets so I opted for deep frying. Other Variations:
You can completely skip beets and add other veggies or mix other veggies along with beets to prepare veggie cutlets too.
I am not a nutritionist. The nutritional information is provided as a courtesy and is an estimate only. It varies depending upon the product types or brands.
Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing BM# 68
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