Vegetable Cutlets

Cooking Time: 45 mins                                                             Servings: 6
Preparation Time: 20 mins                                                       Category: Starters, Veg

Vegetable cutlet is a dish made from coating a cutlet of mixed vegetables with breadcrumbs and deep/shallow frying it. They are great blend of vegetables and spices. These are great as an appetizer, afternoon snack with tea, or as a side dish with dinner.

Ingredients:
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Vegetable Cutlets with Mint Chutney

Potatoes - 6
French beans, chopped - 10
Carrot,grated - 1
Beetroot, grated - 1 small
Green peas - 1/2 cup
Cumin seeds - 1/2 tsp
Mustard seeds - 1/2 tsp
Ginger finely chopped or grated - 1
Garlic cloves finely diced - 5
Finely chopped Onion -  1
Finely chopped Green chillies - 2
Red chilli powder - 1 tsp
Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp
Salt  to taste
Roasted Cashewnuts,crushed -  10
Maida -  2 tablespoons
Finely chopped coriander leaves - 1/2 cup
Lemon juice  - 1 Tbsp
Bread crumbs -  1 cup
Oil  - for deep frying the cutlets


Preparation Method:
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• Boiled the potatoes until they are tender and then drain the water and let them cool down.
• Now peel the skin off and mash the potatoes.
• Steam the vegetables i.e. beans, carrot, peas and beetroot. Make sure to drain out all the excess water out and pat the mixed vegetables dry.
• Heat 1 Tbsp of oil in a pan and add cumin and mustard seeds and once they start to crackle add onions, ginger and garlic. Saute them for 5 mins.
• Add mixed vegetables, cashewnuts, turmeric, salt to taste and chilly powder and saute them until the mix becomes dry. Add chopped coriander and stir well.
• Now mix this with mashed potatoes and make as a dough. Add little bread crumbs so that it binds the mixture into a dough.
• With oiled hands, take small portions of the dough and shape into flat round patties about 1/2 inch thick.
• Add some water to the maida to make a batter and keep aside.
• Dip each patty in the flour batter, and roll in breadcrumbs and set aside.
• Heat the oil in a frying pan and fry the patties until they are golden-brown on both sides.
• Repeat this until all the cutlets are done. Serve hot with tomato ketchup or mint chutney.

  
PS: You can always change the shape of the cutlets to your desired shape. These cutlets also make great veggie burgers. Take a burger bun and cut it horizontally into half. Roast both the halfs with butter and then add lettuce, tomatoes, mayonnaise sauce, cheese and tomato ketchup.

Tomato Rasam (My style)

Cooking Time: 45 mins                                                   Servings: 6
Preparation Time: 20 mins                                             Category: Indian Soups, Veg


Rasam or Saaru, is a famous south Indian soup, traditionally prepared using tamarind juice as a base, with the addition of tomato, and chili pepper, pepper, cumin and other spices as seasonings. Steamed lentils are added along with any preferred vegetables. Nowadays all the seasonings required are combined and ground beforehand into a rasam powder, which is available commercially.
It is eaten with rice or separately as soup. In a traditional meal, it is preceded by a sambar rice course and is followed by curd rice. Rasam has a distinct taste in comparison to the sambar due to its own seasoning ingredients and is usually fluid in consistency.

There are different kinds of rasam, varying by ingredient and region. Some of the common varieties are 

Thakkali Rasam - with tomato puree as main ingredient.
Poondu Rasam - a healthy rasam made with Garlic.
Inji Rasam - a healthy rasam made with Ginger.
Mudakathan Rasam - a healthy green leaf rasam made with Balloon Vine.
Lemon Rasam - a sour soup made with lemon juice.
Parupu Rasam  - common variant made with pulses and tomato stock.
Kollu Rasam or Ulava Saaru - a healthy rasam made with horse-gram.
Mysore Rasam - a fragrant soup made with fried grams/dals.

The recipe am sharing now is a mix of thakkali, poondu and parupu rasam with tamarind juice as base in my own style. So here it goes:-

Ingredients:

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Tomatoes - 4

Tomato Rasam

Toor dal - 1 cup

Hing/Asafoedtida  - 1/2 tsp

Sliced Onions (optional) - 1

Tamarind pulp/paste - 2 to 3 Tbsps

Crushed Black Pepper corns - 8 to 10

Salt - per taste

Turmeric - 1/4 tsp

Sugar - 1 tsp

Chilly powder - 1 tsp

Jeera powder - 1 tsp

Slit green chillies - 4

Curry leaves - 6-8 

MTR rasam powder - 2 Tbsp

Ghee - 1 Tbsp

Crushed garlic cloves - 6

Water - as required and per consistency

Preparation Method:

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• Pressure cook tomatoes and dal in separate vessels in a cooker. Once done, peel off the skin of tomatoes, mash them to a pulp and keep it aside along with the dal.
• Heat ghee in vessel and add crushed pepper corns, crushed garlic and saute them for couple of mins
• Now add sliced oninons, green chillies, curry leaves, hing and saute them too for another couple of mins.
• Add tomatoes, dal, turmeric powder and simmer them for 10 mins.
• Now add jeera, chilli powder, salt and mix it well and cook for 5 mins.
• Add tamarind pulp/paste and let the dish come to a boil. Now simmer the stove and add water as required.
• When this comes to a boil, add the MTR rasam powder and let it boil for 15 mins. Turn of the stove and serve hot with plain rice, idly etc

PS: Before turning the stove off, you can add another tsp of ghee and garnish it with finely chopped coriander. If dal is not being used, increase the count of tomatoes as required.

If you don't want to use ready made MTR rasam powder, you can prepare it at home too. Here is the recipe for the same:-

Ingredients

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Coriander seeds - 1 cup 

Red chillies - 12 

Split black gram dal - 2 tbsps 

Cumin seeds - 2 tbsps 

Fenugreek seeds - 2 tsps 

Mustard seeds - 2 tsps 

Sesame seeds - 1/2 tsp

Oil - 1 tsp

Preparation

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• Dry roast mustard fenugreek seeds on low flame and when they start to  splutter remove them on to a dry plate. 
• Similarly roast cumin seeds till you get a pleasant aroma and remove it into the same plate. 
• Heat oil in the same pan and add coriander seeds, black gram dal and red chillies. 
• Roast them together till the ingredients emanate a pleasant aroma and the chillies become crisp. 
• Remove the roasted ingredients on to a plate and allow to cool. 
• Grind them together into a slightly coarse powder and store in an air tight container