Vegetable Cutlets

This post is especially for one of my best friends Latha. We've been friends since KG - we now live on opposite sides of the globe but still keep in touch regularly and she always reads the blog. Which is why she's always surprised because to her this version of me is totally new even after a year of blogging. She still cannot believe that I'am responsible enough to actually cook and then blog about it too! LOL!

Latha had specifically asked me to blog about veggie cutlets and to be even more specific, the red colored veggie cutlets that are served in many restaurants. So, I tried my best to get that version for Latha. Hope this helps Latha. Sorry for posting it so late though!

Let's get the prep work started. Chop all the veggies you like to use. I used onions, green beans, carrots, green peas, potatoes and beetroots for the red color.

Chop veggies into small pieces - really small if possible. Or you could grate all the veggies except onions.

Boil a couple of potatoes for just about 7-8 mins and then peel them and grate them.

You could also boil the beetroot for a few mins in the microwave to make them a little soft. And then grate them like the potatoes. Look at the color of the water. And what happens when some of this spills on your counter? Check out the next pic.

OMG...someone murdered my beans! Call the cops! LOL!!

In a wide pan, add a tsp of oil. Add 1/2 tsp of jeera seeds and then throw in the chopped onions. Saute for a couple of mins. You could also add some ginger and green chillies and garlic if you like.

Now, add all the veggies in here except the potatoes.

Add in all the masala at this point. I added

1/4 tsp of turmeric
1 tsp of red chilli powder
Salt to taste
1 tsp garam masala

Cook the veggies for a couple of mins and then mash them up a little bit with a masher.

See, they are not completely mashed but atleast the peas is all flat now!

Now, throw in the grated potatoes and mix well.

Once the cutlets are ready, we will need to dip them in flour paste and then roll them in bread flour before frying or baking the cutlets. You could use ready made bread crumbs for this or just make it at home - takes a couple of mins really. Toast a few pieces of bread. Rip them apart and give them a whirrr  in the food processor.

Breadcrumbs are ready in a jiffy.

Once the bread crumbs are out of your food processor, throw all the cooked veggies in and give it a couple of pulses. That will provide a perfect consistency for the cutlets mixture.

Save half of the cutlet mixture (if you want non-red cutlets) and mix the other half, a couple of more pulses with the grated beetroot. This mix can be used to make the red cutlets.

To the dough, add a little bit of bread crumbs and mix well.

Take a medium size ball amount of dough, make a ball and then flatten it a bit. Here are our regular veggie cutlets ready for the test of fire.

Here's my red dough being mixed with the bread crumbs. The bread crumbs help to absorb some of the moisture from the veggies and also makes the cutlets nice and crisp.

There are my red ones ready for the dunk!

In a small bowl, take a little bit of all purpose flour or maida. Add a pinch of salt and then add some water to make a not-too-thin paste.

This is a very critical step in making cutlets. Just before you are ready to fry the cutlets make sure you perform this step. This will ensure that your cutlets don't break and disintegrate in oil. Take a paper towel and place the cutlets inside and press really hard once to remove any moisture. You will easily be able to reshape the cutlets.

Dunk them really quickly on all sides to get a thin coating of the flour paste. Do not let the cutlet sit in here as the cutlets will then again absorb moisture and we don't need that.

Quickly then roll them the cutlet in the bread crumbs. Make sure you roll on the sides too.

And then, you could fry or bake them. But I made this on a Sunday evening when the clouds were all gray and the wind was chilly - normally I would have just made pakodas but since I was making cutlets, I decided to go the extra step and fry it - yeah yeah yeah. Chide me all you want.

There they are - the regular cutlets. All ready to be eaten with ketchup or hot n sweet sauce. But wait, let's kick it up a little bit more.

This is one of my favorite things to do with cutlets - Cutlet Channa!

I made some fresh channa masala and added on top of the hot cutlets.

Then drizzle some green and red chutney on top of the cutlet channa and then top off with fine sev. Perfect meal is ready. You could also add some chopped tomatoes and onions on top. I was just being lazy.

Here are the red cutlets. Latha - I hope you like these!

Just to show the difference between both types of cutlets, here's a cross sectional view!

Enjoy. Peace Out!