Vegetable Cutlet – Tea-time snack with a Healthy Twist

Love for Jolkhabar/snacks make me yearn not only to eat but also increases my agility and ability to try and make some at home. The road-side food stall snacks give the inviting look at a glance and also create the desire to taste some. Gluttony sucks in when I see samosas or vadas or aloo-chop or vegetable chops or cutlets, mutton chop or fish chop — God don’t want to name more — being fried in roadside food stalls. Why does such food attract people towards it? …tasty tasty they are… and leaving behind hygiene and quality, this food stuff can simply invite to have a taste of it. That’s when we get trapped and compromise with our taste buds and leave aside everything else and just go and grab it.

Mothers are particular these days about the food for their children. They don’t like to compromise with the health hazards of unhygienic food the children may eat. So health and hygiene conscious mothers make the best use of their capability and cook tasty and attractive dishes at home…children are happy so are Mothers.

Cooking at home gives the advantage of making it tasty and healthy, for people are very health conscious these days. Good quality cooking oil and other ingredients are carefully chosen and bought. The super markets make buying easier at the same time gives the privilege to see and learn about products which we are unaware of.

By now you must be saying, “Enough of your sermons and now come back to your Cutlet recipe which I believe you are going to share”.

Stopping my rant here and having read your mind I’m back to what I want to share.

The vegetables needed for this:

Potatoes: 3 medium sizes

Green peas: a handful

Carrot: 1 chopped into tiny pieces

French beans: 3-4 cut into small size

Cauliflower: 1 cup of florets

Then:

Boil the potatoes, remove the skin, mash and keep it aside.

Boil the rest of the vegetables till they become soft. Drain the water and also keep it aside.

Now the spices:

Haldi powder: ½ tsp.

Red chilli powder: ¼ tsp.

Cornflour: 2tbsp

Salt to taste

Very little oil for shallow frying

2-3 Green Chillies: Finely chopped

2 Onions: cut into thin rings for garnishing

Dry roast ½ tsp. jeera, ½ tsp. methi and 2 dry red chillis. Grind them into a powder.

Next:

Mix the mashed potatoes, the boiled vegetables, salt, green chillies and cornflour together.

Now add the masala powder and mix it well.

To make sure all is well balanced, you can taste a little of it.

The shaping of the cutlets:

Break up small portions and then give them the shape.

Final healthy finish:

Take a non-stick pan

.

Add 1 tbsp of oil.

Now place the cutlets one-by-one (the numbers the pan can hold) in it, once the oil is hot.

Let it fry on low heat for a couple of minutes.

Turn it over onto the other side so that it also gets the dark brown colour which shows that the cutlets are ready to be served.

Place them on the plate and garnish with some onion rings and tomato hot and sweet sauce which goes very well with it.

Believe it or not, without being deep-fried this tastes great…truly visible from the way they are grabbed for more…

© gouriguha 2013