Homemade granola, at last - with homemade applesauce

 

 

I am not a big fan of store bought cereals. However I do stock whole wheat flakes and unsweetened cornflakes for breakfast in a hurry. Buying boxed cereals with sugar and salt overload are totally avoidable as the first meal of the day. Oats is another regular during breakfast hours. That is one thing the husband has mastered in microwave cooking - Oats, frozen peas, masalas of choice, water and microwave for 4 minutes or so - for a bowl full of fibre, protein and good carbs. I prefer my oats slightly sweetened with jaggery, cooked with milk and cinnamon. When I saw this recipe for granola on Nigella Lawson's show - combining cereals with nuts, seeds, spices - I knew I had to try this. But it turned out to be one of those ideas that keep sitting on the back burner - waiting for the right moment, to be explored. Early this week, sufficiently inspired, I went to the store and bought the necessary ingredients - Oats, cornflakes, apples, sesame seeds for the rest of the stuff I already had at home.

 

Ever since the waxed, coated and 'sitting in cold storage for god knows how long' apples from US and NZ have flooded the markets, I have totally given up apples. I hate the shiny waxy skin, I hate the pasty texture and total lack of taste. But Shimla apples are another breed altogether - they are the perfect combination of juicy, crisp and sweet and I bought 2 kilos. The timing was perfect as I could use a couple of them to make applesauce to hold the garnola together. [Recipe for applesauce at the end of the post]

The resultant breakfast in a bowl is very high in fibre from the whole grains and wheat germ, the sesame seeds are rich in calcium, iron, vitamin B1 and zinc. The taste is absolutely superlative with subtle sweetness from natural sugars in jaggery, honey, apple and the spicy sweetness of cinnamon. Try this once and I guarantee you will never buy the cardboard shards sold in the name of Muesli in supermarkets here.

 

 

Here's my recipe - adapted from Nigella Lawson's - Andy's Fairfield Granola

 

Special equipment
Pressure cooker if making applesauce at home (preferable for quickly stewing apples)
Two large baking trays atleast 9X9

 

Ingredients
500 g Rolled oats ( I used Saffola brand)
2 cups unsweetened corn flakes or wheat flakes
1 cup wheat bran ( I used Baggrey's )
100 g sesame seeds (or roughly 1/3rd cup)-lightly toasted in a wok for 1 minute
1/2 cup - mixture of almonds, sunflower seeds, walnuts, cashews - chopped in bits

 

1/2 cup jaggery dissolved in 1/2 cup water
2 tbsp honey
2 tbsp sunflower or any neutral oil
1 cup applesauce or make your own from 2-3 apples (Recipe below)
1 tsp cinnamon powder
1 tsp dried ginger powder
1 tsp salt

 

1 cup mix of dried apricot bits / raisins / sultananas or any other dried berries

 

Directions

1. Preheat the oven at 200 C.
2. In the largest bowl you have, mix the oats, wheatflakes, nuts, toasted sesame seeds.
3. In a medium bowl, mix the jaggery water, honey, oil, applesauce, ground ginger and cinnamon and salt.
4. Pour the wet ingredients over the dry ingredients in the large bowl and mix with two serving spoons or with your hands, until the spices and liquids have thoroughly coated all of the cereals and nuts.
5. Line the baking trays with aluminium foil.
6. Distribute the granola mix between the two trays, pressing down well.
7. Bake each tray for around 30 minutes at 200 C - keeping a watch that the granola is not burning. If it is browning too fast, turn the tray and reduce the temperature to 175 and bake till quite crisp.
8. Once cool, break into bits or crumble, mix up the dried fruit and store in airtight container.

 

To serve
2 handfuls of granola or 1/2 cup with a cup of milk and some fresh fruit if you like

How to make applesauce

• Wash, peel and core 2-3 good apples.
• Chop into medium pieces and pressure cook with 1/2 cup water, either directly in the cooker or in a bowl for 5-7 minutes. ie. After three whistles, keep on sim for 5-7 minutes.
• After a few minutes, open cooker, remove the stewed apples and mash with a back of a ladle or in food processor.
• This will yield over a cup of applesauce.
• If you dont have a pressure cooker, follow the process in a saucepan with a fitting lid. Simmer for 20-30 minutes till apples are totally soft and then mash.

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Sunday night dinner - Chickpea Basil burgers

Whoever said TV dinners cannot be healthy? These burgers are perfect TV food to pile on a plate and curl up on the couch watching your favourite soap or movie. This recipe is another discovery in my quest for high protein vegetarian recipes. The food and dining section of NYTimes, Guardian, WashingtonPost is my regular haunt not only to see the food trends around the world, but invariably I stumble upon some interesting stuff. The recipe of Spinach and Chickpea burgers from The Washington Post is what inspired me to come up with this version.

We all love burgers, at least most of us. This one is way easier than the mixed vegetable burgers, where you have to clean, cut and prepare an assortment of veggies. This one has just two main ingredients - chickpeas and potatoes. Add to this your favourite greens and spices and you have some really filling burgers ready. Eat them as it is, or as an open sandwich or inside a burger bun. Choice is yours. Pair it with slices of fresh cucumber and tomatoes, lettuce if fresh ones are available - to make up for the lack of vegetables in the burger. I like it with a kick of sharp mustard like Coleman's but ketchup, barbeque sauce, pepper sauce, anything is fine.

Chickpeas are vegetarians' best friends to catch up with protein requirements. Not to mention how loaded in fibre and folic acid they are. Two of these patties provide 25% of your daily fibre requirement and 35% of your folic acid requirement. Combine chickpeas with rice or bread and you get a high quality protein from the meal from a combination of various amino acids. The fibre content not only keeps your full for longer but also helps lower bad cholesterol. Fibre also makes sure your sugar levels go up gradually and this is of special benefit for diabetics.

Ingredients
1/2-3/4 Cup dried chickpeas - soaked in lots of water overnight
1/2 cup mashed potato
1/3 cup chopped basil leaves or any other herbs / greens
1 tsp ground pepper
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp red chilli powder
Besan / gram flour if required

2 tsp olive oil or vegetable oil

To assemble
Bread of your choice (6 burger buns or 12 slices of bread)
Sliced tomatoes, cucumber, washed and dried lettuce leaves
6 cheese slices (optional)
Ketchup, mustard

Directions

• Pressure cook the chickpeas with 2 cups water for 8 minutes or so. (After 3 whistles, lower the flame and keep on sim for 7-8 minutes)
• Drain and mash with a heavy mortar or till coarsely mashed in a food processor.
• In a large bowl, mix mashed chickpeas, potatoes, chopped basil, pepper, salt, red chilli powder.
• Sprinkle gram flour or bread crumbs if the mixture is too wet.
• Divide this into six balls, flatten into thick patties and place on a lightly greased non-stick tava / skillet on a medium flame. Grill each side for 5-7 minutes, till golden brown using little olive oil.
• Remove and keep aside.

Lightly toast the bread for the burger on the same hot skillet. Apply mustard on both slices. Place the cucumber and tomato slices, cheese slice and place the hot burger on the top. Cover with more salad if you like and a slice of bread or the other half of burger bun.

Eat / serve immediately.

Note
If you mash the chickpeas in the food processor, make sure you use the 'pulse' function so it does not turn into a paste, after which it will be tough to shape them into burgers.
You can prepare these upto the 'shaping into patties' stage and freeze them keeping a layer of cling film / butter paper in between and directly grill them on the pan for a weekday dinner.

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Apple Fig and Poppyseed Muffins

Weekend is here. My weekend mornings are no different from weekday mornings. My toddler hasn't yet figured out the weekend business so it's business as usual for us. Last night we forgot to leave the basket out for the milk, so the milkman rang the doorbell at 6 am so that the cats don't get to the milk before me. His intentions were good, but that meant my son woke up with the sound of the bell and dragged me out of bed too. S had left really early for his long run - that left the two of us to fend for each other for the next couple of hours. 

Sometimes, I just throw whatever is on hand when I get a craving to bake something. Sometimes, I prepare the ingredients over a few days and finally get compelled to use them in something. This morning, it was the second situation. I'd finely chopped up some figs a couple of days ago. Yesterday I brewed some strong fruit infusion (Twinings Strawberry and Raspberry), chopped up an apple and soaked the chopped apple and figs overnight in the tea.

This morning, it was time to put them to use. I recently bought this lovely little book called the Muffin Bible. No fancy author here, just a compilation of several very doable recipes. I'd bought to gift Arundati on her birthday. As luck would have it, we could not meet up that day and then when I called her last week, she said she already had that book. Trust a food blogger to have the best and most useful cookbooks on her shelf already! I'd already flipped through the book the very night I'd bought it. Needless to say right? The recipe I've adapted from is the Almond-poppyseed muffins.

Apple, fig and poppyseed muffins

Makes 1 dozen 

Ingredients

8 dried figs, chopped finely

1/2 apple, chopped finely

1 cup strong tea (made from 2 tea bags, fruit infusions or any other)

2 tbsp yogurt or 1 egg

1/2 cup sugar, coarsely ground

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 cup sunflower oil

1/2 cup milk

2 tbsp poppy seeds (the dark variety)

1 cup Maida (all purpose flour)

3/4 cup Atta (whole wheat flour)

1/4 cup Makkai ka atta (corn meal)

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

Preparation

Soak the finely chopped figs and apple in the tea. Cover and keep for a couple of hours or overnight.

Directions

1. Preheat oven at 200 C. Line a 12 muffin pan with paper liners or oil them well.
2. In a large bowl, beat the yogurt (or egg) along with sugar and salt well. 
3. Whisk the oil into this. Add the milk and mix in the poppy seeds.
4. Sieve the flours with the baking powder and soda a couple of times.
5. Mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until just incorporated. Do not over-mix or beat this. 
6. Add the soaked fruits and the half cup of tea that will remain behind.
7. Spoon the batter into the liners until 3/4th filled.
8. Bake at 200 C for 20-25 minutes. Test with a knitting needle / spaghetti if the centers are done. If not bake for 3-4 minutes and check again.
9. Remove the muffins and eat warm.

Notes

• Some ovens can accommodate not more than 9 muffin tin. In that case bake 9 muffins and once done, bake remaining 3 in a second batch or bake a small cake in a small tart tin or so.
• I have soaked the fruit in flavoured tea for added flavour. You may choose to omit the soaking stage, add the chopped fig and apple as it is, but use 1 cup milk instead.
• You can also soak the fruit in 1/4 cup rum + 3/4 cup warm water if you prefer a fruit-cake like taste.

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Moroccan Chickpea stew

Update: Starting this post, I will try and list the places where you can procure ingredients that feature in the recipe, if it is not a regular pantry item. Since I am currently located in Hyderabad, I will be featuring places from this city, and the areas I am familiar with. Readers are welcome to leave their comments about availability of such ingredients in other parts of Hyd / other cities.

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A few weeks ago, a fellow foodie friend dropped by home and told us how he loves to dish out Moroccan food in his kitchen and how he managed to get a local potter to make him the tagine dish too! The foodie in me did not need more kindling than that to start craving a hot pot of Moroccan stew with robust flavours, not very unlike our Indian flavours.

My first brush with Moroccan cuisine was in the Momo Moroccan restaurant in London a few years ago. The vegetable stew and couscous was just perfectly spiced and delicious to suit my vegetarian palate. Chickpeas are another common ingredient in Moroccan cuisine and a chickpea stew sounded like the perfect way to satisfy the cravings.

You can easily pair this stew with some hearty bread like ciabatta or a rye loaf. Couscous is fairly easily available in most Metros. [See end of post on where to buy couscous in Hyderabad.] I usually give a laundry list of foodie items to the husband when he travels abroad and he is only too happy to comply.I don't call him my (eating) partner for nothing!

I adapted from a Food Network recipe - Recipe courtesy Dave Liebermann

Recipe for Moroccan Chickpea Stew

Serves 2

Ingredients

1/2 cup dried chickpeas

2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for garnish
1 large onion, thinly sliced
6 cloves garlic, crushed roughly
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp red chilli powder
1 cup chopped tomatoes
3 cups water plus 2 cubes Maggie Super seasoning or 3 cups of Vegetable stock
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1-2 cups of fresh greens (I used spinach)

Preparation

Soak the chickpeas in lot of water with a pinch of baking soda (optional) for 6-12 hours

Directions

Drain the chickpeas - cover with 2 cups water and pressure cook for 10 minutes, till soft but not mushy. Keep aside.

In a heavy bottomed pan, heat the oil. Saute the onion and garlic on a low flame till soft and cooked, around 7-8 minutes.

Add the spice powders, chopped tomatoes, boiled chickpeas with water and seasoning cubes.

Taste before adding salt as the seasoning cubes contain salt.

Simmer for 7-8 minutes on low flame for the chickpeas to absorb the flavours and the tomatoes to cook.

Add the roughly chopped greens. These will wilt in a couple of minutes.

Grind some black pepper on the top and serve hot / warm with bread or couscous.

For directions on How to Prepare Couscous, check my post on Couscous with roasted Vegetables

Places to buy couscous in Hyderabad

SPAR - Begumpet

QMart - Road 2, Banjara Hills

Hypercity - Inorbit Mall, Cyberabad

Places to buy gourmet breads in Hyderabad

Deli 9, various outlets

Sweet Nirvana Patisserie, Madhapur

Beyond Coffee, Road 36 Jubilee Hills

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Arisi Upma - A breakfast in minutes

Steaming hot upma is served

This recipe is another example of how simple traditional Tamil Brahmin cuisine is. No frills, no laundry-list of ingredients and yet divine in taste.

In earlier times, rice rava used to be painstakingly prepared at home by picking, washing and draining the rice. It then used to be left to dry on layers of old muslin cloth in the shade. The rice would then be hand-pounded into a coarse powder. My mother and grandmother still follow the procedure except that in the last step, the food processor has replaced the hand-pounding. Thankfully. 


As much as I love traditions, I am deprived of this virtue called patience. My husband will tell you the same thing. So I pick this packet of readymade Idli Rava from the supermarket and that makes life a lot easier for me.



Idli rava / rice rava (rice that is broken into a coarse rava) is a very useful ingredient to have around the kitchen. It cooks in a jiffy compared to whole rice or regular rava (semolina). You can use this to make delicious Upma Kozhakattai - which is one of the lesser known Tamilian tiffin items that I have never seen in a restaurant menu. This was one of the earliest entries on this blog.

You can also soak this instead of rice to grind idli batter. A simple rice porridge can be prepared in minutes for your toddler at a moment's notice if you have idli rava at home. And of course this breakfast recipe that you can virtually make in the time your family takes to settle on the dining table. 

This makes a quick weekday breakfast. To make it a more sumptuous breakfast, serve it with sambar and a variety of chutneys.

The coconut oil used in this recipe gives a deep aroma to the upma, but it's not a must really. Use any other vegetable oil or ghee instead.

This is way faster than the regular upma because you need not roast the rava nor chop any chillies, ginger, onions etc. and this cooks in almost half the time as regular rava.

So you have no excuses not to try this out. Just make sure you add 'Idli Rava' to your grocery list the next time :)

Arisi Upma - Broken rice upma

Serves 3

Time taken - Under 10 minutes

Ingredients

1-2 tsp edible coconut oil

Small pinch of asafoetida

1/2 tsp mustard seeds

1-2 dried red chillies

1 tsp udad dal (ulutham paruppu)

1 sprig curry leaves (optional)

1 cup idli rava

3 cups water

1 tsp salt

1-2 tbsp scraped fresh coconut

1 small piece of jaggery

1/4 cup frozen peas (optional)

Directions

1. In a large non stick kadai, heat the coconut oil.
2. Stir in the asafoetida and splutter the mustard seeds. Add the udad dal and fry till lightly golden. Fry the curry leaves if using for a few seconds and the dried red chillies.
3. Add 3 cups of water, salt, coconut scrapings, frozen green peas (if using) and jaggery. Let this come to a rolling boil.
4. Reduce the flame to sim and add the idli rava while stirring constantly to avoid lumps.
5. Cover with a tight fitting lid and cook until the water evaporates - this takes under 3-4 minutes. Give it a good stir. Check for salt. If you think the upma is too dry and the rice rava needs to be cooked some more, add few more tablespoons of water, cover and cook on low flame for 2-3 minutes more.
6. Once this water is absorbed and the rava is cooked, turn off the flame. Keep covered for 2-3 minutes. This will make the grains absorb the moisture from the steam and fluff up some more.
7. Serve hot garnished with some more fresh coconut if required.

Note:

• The jaggery will not make this taste sweet, but according to my granny rice-rava has a slight bitter tinge about it which this jaggery will neutralize.
• The original arisi upma recipe does not use peas. This is just to make it more filling and add to the protein content.

15 June 2010

Edited to add- Comment from my Dad on email after seeing this post:

Unnudaya uppumavai partha udaneye appdiye sappidanumbola irukku. Moreover, the garnishing is TOP. God bless you. Appa.

This made me so happy this morning :)

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Going down memory lane with icecream and recipe for Fig and Vanilla Icecream

"As a kid, the only thing I really cared about was candy. Candy is the only reason you want to live when you’re a kid. Ages zero through ten, candy is your life, there’s nothing else. Family, friends, school…they’re only obstacles in the way of getting more candy."

Jerry Seinfeld

I can say the same thing about ice cream.

As a child, my love for ice cream was pretty intense. More so because I was not allowed to eat it as frequently as I'd have liked to. I was predisposed to getting a nasty cold every now and then. The fact that my people thought eating ice cream led to colds did not help. Exam times, school competitions, all such times were strictly no-ice cream times. I wont say I was obsessed with ice cream the way Jerry was with candy. But being denied something makes you want it more. That's what happened to me.

My first favourite among ice creams was strawberry - no fancy schmancy REAL fruit ice cream - the pale pink synthetic colour and flavour of Amul suited my tastebuds just fine. Next in line came Tutti Frutti - which is it's mild orangey flavour and the colourful fruit bits (coloured and candied dried papaya for all we know) was pleasing to the eye as well as palate.

My aunt used to make these ice creams with seasonal fruits like Chikoo, Mango, Custard apple and also with those ice-cream mixes that were common in supermarkets as we were growing up. Those days, any guests coming to her place would unashamedly poke their head into her freezer to check if that aluminium dabba in which she usually freezed the good stuff was around!

Then entered Baskin Robbins. Probably that time I was low on my ice cream phase and don't recall any big favourites with them.

My short stay in the US made me a big fan of Perry's Death by Chocolate - my tastebuds could not believe that such a decadent icecream could exist. Then of course there was Ben and Jerry's Cherry Garcia and more such exotic flavours that made me regret that my stay in US wasn't long enough. On second thoughts, I'm happy today I gave all those excess calories a miss.

From US when we moved back to Bombay, we settled into ice cream land - Juhu - the place where Natural's Ice Cream was born. The ice cream of Juhu scheme. Anyone who has tasted Naturals will vouch for the real good taste that comes from fresh natural ingredients. Their home delivery box on any fruit ice cream will read just three ingredients: Milk, fruit and sugar. I trust them. My favourites here were the papaya-pineapple and real strawberry. When it comes to ice creams, I'll mostly go with fruit flavours or butter scotch. I'm not a big fan of chocolate in ice creams, I can eat chocolate by itself, thank you.

Today, I have all the freedom to eat ice cream as and when I please. The husband has nothing but words of encouragement when I say "I feel like having an ice cream today". Last week we shared a Willy Wonka Chocolate blast at the Cream Stone, which made me feel guilty as hell :(

There are some things you want to make more often, but we don't get around to making them. Making ice cream at home is one such thing for me. In all these years of frantic cooking, I've made kulfi twice and ice cream twice, including this one. I'll probably make it more often, now that I've almost cracked the jinx. 

I came to know after 5 years of being married to S that his favourite flavour in ice creams was Fig and Honey, which is why they say marriage is a process of continuous discovery of each other :) I saw him poking his head into the Baskin Robbins counter a few days ago searching for this flavour that was out of stock or something like that - which is when the idea of making this cropped up in my mind. And I wanted to start using the vanilla pods that I'd bought in Munnar on my holiday there in April. So this was a fantastic experience for me, handling real vanilla for the first time.

Since this can be made using basic household equipment, more ice cream lovers can try this out. So here's the recipe for the eggless fig vanilla ice cream - no ice cream maker required.

Fig and Vanilla Ice cream

Serves 6-8

Ingredients

12 dried figs

1" vanilla pod

800 ml milk ( I used toned 3%)

1/2 tin condensed milk (200g)

6tsp sugar or more to suit your taste

1 tbsp cornflour

Directions

• Soak the figs in hot water for 3-4 hours till plump and soft. Grind to a rough puree, using some of the soaked water if required. If some pieces of fig remain, it is fine - it will fun biting into the little chewy pieces later!
• In a heavy bottomed saucepan, combine all but half cup of milk, condensed milk and sugar. Bring to a simmer.
• Slit the vanilla pod with the tip of a sharp knife - scrape out the seeds into the simmering milk. I added the empty pods into the milk too, to use any seeds that got left out inside. [If using extract, add in two teaspoons of extract after removing the mixture from the flame.]
• Mix the cornflour in the reserved half cup cold milk and add to the simmering mixture. Bring to a boil. The simmering milk will thicken as the cornflour gets cooked.
• Add the fig puree at this stage. Stir / whisk well and remove from flame. [If using vanilla extract, add at this stage.]
• Cool the content of the pan and pour into two plastic icecream boxes. (I used two old ice cream containers 500 ml each)
• Turn your freezer's setting to maximum and keep the boxes in the freezer for 4-6 hours.
• When the ice cream is nearly set, remove the contents of boxes into a large bowl and churn with an electric hand blender till soft and creamy, around 6-8 minutes.
• Return the content to the boxes and freeze again.
• You can repeat the same procedure after 3-4 hours and freeze for a creamier texture.

If you don't have an electric hand blender, use your food processor or else a wooden spoon to beat the mixture manually.

Taste: The ice cream was mildly sweet and very rich in flavours - vanilla with its intoxicating sweet aroma and the figs with their natural sweetness and textures. The combination worked beautifully for us. The condensed milk almost made up for the absence of the eggs - providing the rich creamy taste.

I used regular 3% milk, but you can use whole milk for better taste and more creaminess.

The only other ice cream on this blog is the Mango-coconut ice cream, which you might like to try if the mango season is still on in your part of the world.

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Minty Raw-Mangoey Ragda Patties

[If you would like to connect with me on Facebook then please join the Saffron Trail page by clicking on the badge in the right column here. I post recipes which don't feature on the blog for lack of pictures, my toddler's favourite food recipes and lots of food related banter.]

Ragda patties is a very very popular street snack in Mumbai and many other parts of Northern India. Its chunky, spicy, tangy, sweet all at once and in short mouthwateringly irresistible like all other 'chats'!

It is easy to assume that Street Food = Junk Food = Unhealthy Food. 

However when the premise of a street food like Ragda Patties is a balanced meal made of Potatoes (Carbs) and Dried peas (Protein and Fibre) and tomato-onion salad (fibre and vitamins) one can make it even healthier at home ! 

What makes this unhealthy outside is the deep frying of the patties in god-knows-what oil and the number of times the oil is brought to high temperature to fry different batches in a day or over several days. This procedure of reheating oil several times, produces trans-fats. Eating food containing transfats  is one of the biggest cardiac risks. 

At home, I prepared these golden patties on a non stick tava with just 2 teaspoons of olive oil, in total  (Honest!!) and I added grated tofu to the potato mix to make it richer in protein content. Tofu haters of the world - this one is for you. You wouldn't even know that there was tofu in it thanks to the fresh flavours of mint, raw mango, ginger, garlic and green chillies that went into it.

This is how a street food with a notorious 'unhealthy' tag attached to it can turn extremely healthy and even wear the crown of ' health food'.

Here's the recipe for you. This makes a hearty dinner for two or three.

Potato-Tofu Patties with Ragda

Ingredients

For Ragda

150 grams roughly 3/4 cup dried green or white peas - soak overnight in plenty of water

Salt

1 tbsp Coriander powder

1 tsp amchoor powder or 1 tsp tamarind puree

For Potato-Tofu Patties

3 Medium potatoes

1/4 cup finely grated firm tofu

1/4 cup breadcrumbs

Salt to taste

Pinch of turmeric powder

Masala for both Ragda and Patties

Grind together to a coarse paste

3 green chillies

1/2 cup washed and picked mint leaves

handful of raw mango pieces

1 inch ginger

3 cloves of garlic

Toppings

1 large onion finely chopped

2 medium tomatoes, finely chopped

Green chutney

Tamarind chutney ( I use Kitchens of India brand)

Fresh coriander

chat masala

Directions

Preparation :

Pressure cook potatoes for 5 minutes. Cool, peel and keep aside.

Drain the soaked peas. Wash well and pressure cook for 7 minutes with 3 cups of water. The skins will come off during this process and some of the peas may get mushy. Don't worry about this, use the entire lot for the recipe.

In a large bowl, mash the potatoes along with other 'Patties' ingredients and half the ground masala. If the 'dough' is not firm enough to make patties, then add some more bread crumbs to adjust. Divide into 6-8 balls. Flatten on the palm to make patties of around half inch thickness. 

Heat a non-stick tava (skillet). Brush with olive oil and place all the patties (or in batches if your tava does not accomadate all) On a medium flame, crisp each side for around 5 minutes, till golden brown. Use some oil around the sides to help crisp up.

For the ragda (gravy), place the pressure cooked peas in a saucepan with the remaining ground masala and coriander powder, amchoor powder, salt. Bring this to a simmer. Check for salt and adjust.

To assemble a plate - 

Cut 2-3 patties into quarters. Place in a deep dish.

Pour 2-3 ladles of ragda over this.

Top with chopped onions, tomatoes, coriander and your choice of chutneys. Sprinkle chat masala and serve.

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