To be brutally
honest, I am a terrible cook. I am not a foodie either. I just eat to live
unlike err… everyone I know. Each and every dish I ever prepared was just
mediocre, nothing special and some of them I cooked soon after marriage were total
flops. However by mistake a pepper chicken came out great when I was at
Bangalore and ever since I don’t remember being praised or blamed for something
I cooked. I received nods from my ‘victims’ which suggested ‘Yeah, it is
edible’. However women are judged by their culinary skills and any other skill
she has is usually overlooked. But I’ve never bothered or even strove to be a
good cook, because I’ve never been interested in it. However this quality of
mine is an insult of the highest degree to my Mom, grandmother and sister who
have that magic in them that whatever they prepare even when half asleep turns
out to be one of a kind. So I ended up being a man-woman and I am not
proud of it either.
Recently I came
across a few food blogs. The reason I was browsing through food blogs was that
it is lent time for us Christians, and for the next fifty days until Easter I
have voluntarily given up chicken and fish, which are the ones that I really
love. I am allergic to red meat, and so I am living on leaves and herbs now. I
have a new respect for vegetarians these days. And to stay the least, being vegetarian
in the middle-east where chicken shewerma is a national food – that is the kind
of temptation I have to overcome during this period. So I was checking to see
any exciting vegetarian recipes which can be cooked by dummies like me. And I
came across vegetable cutlet.
It was weekend,
and I was all set and hell bent on making this cutlet. My husband had the double
duty to take care of the baby (the other being watching TV), who’d crawled
under the dining table as a sign of protest when I was making this cutlet. The
little dude was not very impressed as I dint play with him all forenoon. For
anyone who is going through this article right now, please note - this is not a
recipe post. It is my experience of making a cutlet for the first time in my
life. If you want, I guarantee that you may try this at home as it came out
really well. If I can make it, then you definitely can, even if you are a robot
and reading my blog.
Ingredients(Vegetables)
Beetroot – 1
medium sized
Potatoes – 2 reasonably
large
Beans – a
handful
Carrot – 1 large
Onion – 1 large
Other
Ingredients
Coconut oil
Bread Powder
Eggs – 2
(vegetarians can use maida and water instead)
Coriander leaves
Green Chillies -
3
Garam Masala
Pepper Powder
Salt
Ginger-Garlic
Paste.
How I went
about it
1. Initially, I called my mother.
She
said that instead of cooking potatoes separately, you can combine them with
beetroots, if you don’t mind the potatoes getting that purple color. (I wanted
the end result to taste and look like a cutlet – the color of potatoes was far
from my concern at that time). This will save time and energy, she added. So I
cut potatoes in squares, and beetroot the way I know it (it’s okay folks no one
will dig out the shape of beetroots from the final result, so chill and cut
whichever way you want), and cooked in a pressure cooker with very less water
and some salt for 5 whistles. I drained it and let it cool.
2. Then I peeled a medium sized piece of
ginger, few garlic pods and green chillies and put them in the small jar of the
mixer. I added garam masala, salt and pepper powder also to it, made a paste and
kept it aside.
3. Then I heated a pan, poured coconut oil (just
little) and sautéed the onion. When it became light, I added the paste and
closed the lid and kept on low flame for couple of minutes. Then the raw smell
of the garam masala disappeared and the paste was blended with the onions.
4. I added the cut beans and grated carrot
into this and closed and cooked for five minutes or so. I then checked whether
they were cooked and switched off the flame and let it cool.
5. By that time the potato-beetroot was cool,
so I mashed it and watched some TV.
6. After some time, the cooked carrot and
beans were also cool and I added them into this mixture and mixed it with my
hands. Yes I washed them...I mean the hands. I checked for salt and gave a
little to my maid for her opinion. She gave me a go-ahead. (Don’t go too far
with the salt at this stage, let it remain subtle, because eventually you have
to dip them in egg and if its subtle now, it will eventually round up to the
nearest salt accuracy)
7. I tried to make a ball of it with my
right hand alone, then used both hands to mould it and pressed it manually to
form a circle. It did not stick to my hands and rested on the plate in good
shape.
8. Likewise I did for the entire stuff and
made 15 balls. Phew!
9. I then dipped each of them in egg, and
rolled them around in bread powder and kept in fridge for half an hour.
10. I took them after that and shallow fried
them until they got chocolate brown, but not burnt. I used very little oil. In fact I took enough
oil only to fill the tiny cap of the oil bottle twice. After frying I moved
them to a container with absorbent paper and it absorbed rest of the oil.
Notes:
1. I made the ginger garlic paste at home and did not use any ready mades. It
makes a hell of a taste difference (lesson learnt from my previous catastrophic
experience)
2.
If you buy the rusk and powder it and store in air tight container at home,
that is the best. I dint have time to do that so bought ready-made bread powder
for this one. Its okay, but I was not so satisfied. The original bread powder
smells good and is very much different from the canned one.
3.
Do not add water while cooking the beans and carrot. Just close the lid and
cook on low flame. The beans can be cut thinner than that shown in the picture.
( I don’t have a food processor…sob Lbecause
buying me a food processor is like buying LED TV for a blind man.
4.
The garam masala used was made at home by crushing the spices in the mixer.
Pepper powder was also crushed and prepared at home.
5.
You can add a combination of other vegetables of your choice and avoid beetroot.
I used beetroot because it gives a dark color to the cutlet and has a good
flavor too. You can use cheera(leafy vegetable) also to prepare this. Cheera is
super healthy and rich in iron and hence I don’t like it much. But I’d like to
try with cheera next time, and check whether they taste good when
disguised as a cutlet.
6. For those who are wondering what is the role of eggs in a vegetable cutlet, chill. You can use maida or all purpose flour, made to a paste in water instead.
And
there is my healthy and tasty vegetable cutlet which has negligible oil content.
It is undoubtedly a healthy snack for fussy toddlers (that is if the toddler
lets you make it).
Am I cool or what! (Already soaring high in self
appreciation…you are welcome too : D)
