I ran out of supplies today and ventured into cooking with limited ingredients. Left with half a packet of mushrooms and an almost empty fridge, I decided to make some salad. A few seconds into chopping the mushrooms, and I noticed there were some potatoes in the rack. What more could one ask for! They were perfect together. And who does not love some mouth-watering cutlets. Please note, this is my own little kitchen experiment that turned out delicious(in my humble opinion). So if you like tikkis spicy, amp up the spice quotient or stick to this recipe and serve with a spicy sauce/ chutney.
There are three steps to this recipe:
- Boiling the Potatoes
- Cooking the Mushroom Masala; and,
- Mixing the two and shallow-frying them.
Let's begin.
Step 1: Boiling the potatoes:
- Rinse 2 large potatoes in water and place them in a pressure cooker.
- Add water, just enough to cover the potatoes.
- Close the lid. and cook for about 8 to 10 whistles or until the potatoes get soft.
- Peel and mash the potatoes. Easy!
Step 2: Cooking the Mushroom Masala:
Ingredients:
- 1 tbsp Ghee/ clarified butter
- 10 pods of Garlic, peeled and finely chopped
- 1 medium onion, finely chopped
- 200 gms mushrooms, rinsed and finely chopped
- 1 tsp ginger garlic paste
- 1 tsp cumin powder
- 1/2 tsp red chilli powder
- 1 tsp pepper powder
- 1/4th tsp turmeric powder
- Salt to taste
- 2 tsps Tomato ketchup
- 1 tsp hot and Sweet chilli garlic sauce
Method:
- Heat ghee in a pan. Once hot sauté the chopped garlic until golden brown
- Add the mushrooms and onions and keep stirring until water oozes from the shrooms and the onions get soft.
- To this add ginger garlic paste and sauté.
- Put in pepper, cumin, red chilli and turmeric powders and mix well.
- Add salt to taste. Just enough as we will not be adding it elsewhere.
- Add tomato ketchup and sweet chilli garlic sauce and combine well.
Step 3: Mixing the two and shallow-frying them
Ingredients:
- Coriander leaves, a fistful and finely chopped
- Boiled Potatoes from Step 1
- Mushroom Masala from step 2
- Rice flour for dusting and frying
Method:
- In a utensil add the mashed, boiled potatoes
- Add the mushroom masala mixture to this along with coriander leaves and mix everything well.
- Using your palms, roll the combined mixture into round balls and flatten them into thick discs as in the picture below.
- Dust them with rice flour
- Heat 2 tbsps ghee in a broad pan.
- Once hot, add the tikkis in and let it cook on a low flame for at least seven to ten minutes. By doing so you prevent the tikkis from getting burnt and they get a beautiful brown crisp coating, thanks to the rice flour.
- Gently turn each tikki and cook for another 10 minutes. And voila! Enjoy!
- Note do NOT cover with a lid on the pan. Doing so will make them soggy.
- Throughout the frying process keep the flame very low to get good results.