Vegetable chop or cutlet can be a great starter for your vegetarian guests as well as for you as a tea time snack. We, Bengalis generally have it with puffed rice or “muri”. In fact we have many such kind of snacks that acts as a counterpart to puffed rice.

In West Bengal it is readily available in many snacks shops, no one needs to prepare at home indeed. But here in Europe though various ready-made snacks are available, sadly we do not find much of our Indian snacks.

I remember as a child that my mother tried it a few times at home, but somehow the cutlets  used to disintegrate while frying. That’s why I had an initial fear that same will repeat with me and indeed it happened quite a few times.  But after trying it out for several times, I am quite confident now of preparing it, so share the recipe with you with few handy tips.

Ingredients for 5 pieces :

1. Boiled & mashed potato – 2 (big size)
2. Grated carrot – ½ (medium size)
3. Finely grated beet – ½ (medium size)
4. Chopped coriander leaves – 2 tbspoon
5. Chopped green chilli – 1 or 2
6. Roasted cumin powder – ½ tbspoon
7. Roasted coriander powder – ½ tbspoon
8. Salt to taste
9. Roasted pea nuts – 1 tbspoon
10. Plain flour/corn flour – 1½ tbspoon
11. Breadcrumbs to coat
12. Cooking oil

Procedure :

Heat 1 tbspoon of oil in a frying pan over low – medium heat. Add grated carrot, beet and little bit of salt to it, fry until they are cooked.

Now in a large bowl mix the mashed potato, fried carrot & beet, coriander leaves, green chillies, pea nuts, roasted cumin & coriander powder and salt according to your taste. Divide the mixture in 5 equal parts and give them a shape as shown below.

Now make a batter (neither very thick nor very thin) with flour/corn flour and water. Add a pinch of salt in the batter. Coat each vegetable ball first with breadcrumbs, then batter and at last again with the breadcrumbs.

Now heat sufficient amount of oil in a frying pan and deep fry the vegetable balls. Take them out on a paper towel.

Now enjoy it with puffed rice and tea as an evening snacks. 🙂

 Note :

1. As I said in my earlier post that while making this type of snacks make sure that the oil is very hot during the frying process otherwise the cutlets will break and potato mixture will come out from it.
2. Potato mixture should not be very soft. If you find it soft, add some breadcrumbs into it to get the binding consistency.
3. Use sufficient amount of oil while frying the cutlets so that they can completely dip into the oil.
4. You can give the cutlets any shape according to your preference.