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Friday, February 27, 2009

Ragda Patties

Though I say I dont like to cook that is not exactly true, I only hate cooking the ordinary stuff dal-chawal, chapatti-bhaji, etc. Tonight as I looked into my fridge and saw a mundane pumpkin and some veg kofta balls I had made in bulk and frozen weeks earlier I knew instinctively what I would end up picking for dinner.

The problem was what to make with them, I have been experimenting with malai kofta recipes and have yet to find a decent one, but I would have to make chapattis too, more work than I was in the mood for. Or I could make a re-imagined Veg balls in hot garlic sauce with fried rice. But, we are on a diet and B will NOT eat rice at night.

And then I hit upon the perfect solution, why not fry them up as cutlets and make my favorite chaat - Ragda Patties. As you might have figured by now, our diet plan is highly selective, even before I put the question to B I knew he would be heartily endorsing shallow fried potatoes for dinner.

The recipe I have for this mouth-watering chaat is amazingly simple, made even simpler since I had a lot of the fixings on hand - I always keep a jar of tamarind-date chutney in my pantry and of course I had the koftas. Squashing the koftas didnt make for very pretty cutlets but they were going to be coverd with the ragda anyway. Because I had made them earlier they had peas, cashews etc in them but for the actual recipe I like to keep the potato cutlets very simple, just like you get on the roadside in Mumbai. The whole thing should take about an hour, less if you are more organized than me.

Ragda Patties

Ingredients
For the Patties: (Should make appox 8 large cutlets)
Potatoes - 3/4 large sized, turmeric and salt.

For the ragda:
Dried White Peas - 1 and a half cups (I use teacups of 125 ml), 1/2 tsp. baking soda
Grind to a paste - 3/4 green chillies, 3/4 large cloves of garlic, 1" ginger, 2 tsp coriander seeds, 1/2 tsp cumin seeds, 1/4 tsp shah jeera seeds, 7-8 pepper corns, 2-3 dried red chillies, 3-4 pieces cinnamon, 4 cloves.

For garnish:
Chop finely 1 small onion, mix with finely chopped coriander leaves and keep aside.
Tamarind-Date chutney (plain tamarind will do too)
Coriander, Cumin, Pepper and Red chilli Powders.

Method
For the patties: Boil and grate the potatoes (you could mash them too but I like the consistency of grated better). Mix turmeric and salt to taste, shape into cutlets and shallow fry them. If desired, some boiled peas from the next step can be stuffed into the center of the cutlets.

For the ragda: Soak the peas overnight, then boil them with the baking soda in a pressure cooker (if you dont soak the peas beforehand, you will have to cook them longer) and keep aside. In a kadai, heat some oil, add the ground masala paste and fry for a little time, add the peas, salt and let boil until desired thickness is reached.

Assemble the chaat:
Place the cutlets in a plate, pour the ragda on top, add onion+coriander, the tamarind chutney and sprinkle with all the four powders.

Enjoy :D

8 comments:

Ava said...

We used to get yummy hot ragda patties in Jamnagar. But I didnt know how to make a killer plate. Now I do... maybe I will try someday.

couchpapaya said...

avdi - the disadv. of living abroad is that u want to eat something, u just have to learn how to make it or else remain unsatisfied !!! for the longest time i put off making this because i thought it was a lot of work, now it gets made almost every alternate week ....

on another note, this blog is dying, ladies pls update with more recipes .....

Smita said...

We call this Tikki Chaat :-)

I simply love any kind of chaat and my mom used to add a variation to it. May be you can try that.

Boil grean peas, add salt and garam masala to it and stuff it in aloo tikki....it taste's yummy!!!!

Like you am very fond of cooking so I keep trying these chaat's and all...I also get gol gappe's to add on :-)

Will surely try your recipe....the only prob with me is that I never pre plan my meals and thus matar is never soaked on time :(

couchpapaya said...

smita - i thought it was called aloo tikki chaat but didnt want to say so in case my memory was faulty, in mumbai it's always called ragda patties (but the last is pronouced pattice to rhyme with lattice, for some reason) ... will try ur variation, am drooling already :D

that's what i meant abt the organized bit, even i never have matar's soaked beforehand. what u can do is take the matar+water in the pressure cooker, boil the water (without the lid on), switch the gas off and soak for abt an hour. then it took abt 4 whistles plus around 15 mins on simmer fr mine to cook perfectly but each pressure cooker is different so u might have to experiment.

samir said...

CP:
Back from shoveling snow, and I see this; this is torture; I have to shovel and I do not get this.
Yummy stuff.
I shall contribute soon.
Samir

couchpapaya said...

samir - hehe i sincerely hope our days of shovelling snow are over this year ... will wait for ur recipe!

Ava said...

Smita, This is definately not alloo tikki chat. Ragda Patis is definately a differnent taste, practically drowned in hot green peas. I love both of course, n eschew both because of the danger to what was once my waistline.

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