Vegetable Cutlet

Vegetable Cutlets

Vegetable cutlets are a classic and quintessential snack that you can find all over India. Anushka and I have nostalgia of vegetable cutlets served in long distance trains early morning! Since I made the green chutney a few days ago, I thought taking a shot at these would a good idea. Its really simple and this makes for a super tea time snack.

This is what you will need:

• 3 medium potatoes
• 1 medium sized carrot
• 5-6 strings of green beans
• 1 Tblsp sweet corn kernels
• 1 Tblsp peas
• 2 Tblsp coriander leaves chopped fine
• 2 green chillies chopped fine
• 1 Tsp freshly grated ginger
• 2 Tsp salt
• 1 Tsp red chilli powder
• 1 Tsp coriander powder
• 1 Tsp garam masala
• 1 Tsp dried mango powder (aamchoor)
• 1 Cup all purpose flour (maida)
• 3 slices of bread
• Oil for frying

The first thing to understand is that unlike tikkis, potatoes are not the star of this dish, the vegetables are. 3 potatoes may seem less but all they're doing is being a binding agent to the cutlet, so that's all you should need. Boil these potatoes, let them cool down and then peel and mash them.

Next, wash and chop the carrots and beans into fine bits and then steam them with the peas and corn. If you haven't steamed vegetables before, here is how to do it: Fill a deep vessel such as a pressure cooker with about 2-3 inches of water and put it on the stove to boil. Take a a metal strainer or a heat resistant colander with the vegetables in it and place it on top of the vessel, so that the vegetables are not touching the water. Cover the vessel with a lid in a manner so that only some steam is allowed to escape.. I'd say you want to let this steam for about 10 minutes. A good test is picking off a piece of carrot an biting through it. You don't want it too raw, neither do you want it mushy.

Once the vegetables are steamed, put them on a dry cloth napkin and squeeze the water from them. Don't worry about mincing peas or corn but don't be too hard on the squeeze. If required pat this mixture with a paper napkin.

Next, take the mashed potatoes in a wide prep bowl and add the vegetables, coriander, green chilies, ginger and spices.

Time to get he hands dirty: mix all of these well and create a ball of the overall mixture. Now oil your hands well and take about 2 Tblsp of the mixture and roll it into a small ball and then flatten it. The oil makes this process easier and the cutlets are less likely to break. You should be able to prepare about 10 cutlets - keep them aside.

At this point the major prep work is done. Now we have to work on the outer coating - the batter that is. First off, continually add water to the flour until you achieve a nice thick consistency. If this is too flid, then the batter will just slip off the cutlet before the flying begins. Substituting maida by rice flour  is an interesting touch here - the rice flour makes the exterior more crisp. Second, take the 3 slices of bread, tear them into 3-4 chunks and thrown them into the grinder to get fine breadcrumbs. We're ready.

Heat the oil - you want the oil to be on high heat else the cutlets will begin to crumble as soon as you dip them in the oil. Here is how you want to proceed - dip the cutlet in the batter, then quickly lather it with the breadcrumbs. This is how it should look before being thrown into the oil.

That's it, fry these until golden brown and serve the cutlets hot with chutney or sauce and piping hot tea.