Aaloo Tikki

The quintessential North Indian street food is Chaat -- a generic name for a tangy and spicy mix, whose ingredients can be quite varied. The tangy flavor is usually imparted by the use of lemon, pomegranate seeds, Black salt, tamarind, and various chutneys. Chaat can be prepared with fruit, with popular ones including guava, banana, apple, etc. It could instead be made using small crisp pancakes made from fried flour, called "paapri", along with yogurt. Potatoes sauteed with black cumin powder constitute another variant.

Aaloo Tikki is a kind of patties made up of mashed potatoes and masala deep fried in oil. They are served typically with a curry called Choley (chick peas). They are popular in winter in North India.

As we were not feeling that well, I din't mess around trying to decorate the tikkies & take a good picture. They tasted really good though :)

Ingredients: -

2 medium sized potatoes

1 medium sized onion, finely chopped

fist full green peas

4 slices bread (remove the brown sides)

1/4 tsp garam masala
1/4 tsp chaat masala
1 tsp jeera
1 tbsp lemon juice

Green chillies, according to taste, finely chopped

Coriander leaves, finely chopped

Butter for shallow frying

Salt

Method: -

1. Either microwave the potatoes or pressure cook potatoes & peas together.

2. Mix jeera, garam masala, chaat masala, lemon juice to onion pieces, mashed peas, coriander, chillies, salt & mashed potatoes. This forms a kind of dough.

3. Dip the bread slices in water one after another & mix to the above dough. The bread should not be soaking in water, dip it just to make it soft.

4. Roll the dough into lemon sized balls & given them the shape of cutlets by flattening them.

5. Heat a tbsp of butter on a skillet & put 4 or 5 tikkies at a time.

6. Let them cook on medium flame till the rim of the tikkies turn golden brown on both the sides.

7. Use a kitchen tissue to remove excess oil/fat.

8. Tikkies can be had with curds, tomato sauce/ketchup or tamarind/mint chutney.