Ragada Patties

Its Indian road side food, another chaat, most loved and famous in Maharastra and Gujrath, full of nutrition and protein. It surely can be the main course for savory dinner parties or snack for a cold winter evening.

Ragada patties is nothing but potato patties covered with white peas curry, topped with your choice of sauces (chutneys) like sweet tamarind-date chutney, green chutney for chaat and garnished with crunchy sev, cilantro, onions and tomatoes.

It consists of two main things:

Ragada (spicy white peas curry)

Patties

Ragada

Ingredients:

White Vatana (Whole Dried White Peas): 2 cups

Water: 6 cups

Salt to taste

Oil: 2 tbsp

Mustard Seeds: 1/2 tsp

Cumin Seeds: 1/2 tsp

Crushed Peanuts: 2 tbsp

Sesame Seeds: 1 tbsp

Asafoetida: 1/8 tsp

Turmeric Powder: 1/4 tsp

Curry Leaves: few

Ginger: 2 tsp, minced

Garlic: 3 large cloves, minced

Green Chillies: to taste, minced

Onions: 1 cup, finely chopped

Tomato: 1 large, chopped

Rasam Powder: 1 tsp (This is the secret ;) )

Coriander Powder: 1 tsp

Cumin Powder: 1/2 tsp

Lemon Juice: to taste

Cilantro: to garnish

Procedure:

Keep all the ingredients ready before you start as this procedure though it looks long, it’s really fast.

1. Wash and soak the Vatana (whole white peas) overnight in water.
2. Drain water from soaked Vatana , rinse and add Vatana plus fresh water (6 cups) and salt to taste in a pressure cooker.
   Allow pressure cooker to whistle once, reduce the stove to a simmer and cook for 10 minutes.TIP: do not overcook Vatana otherwise it will taste like mashed curry. Allow the pressure to go down by itself.
3. Heat Oil in a pan.
4. Add Mustard Seeds and allow them to pop.
5. Add in Cumin Seeds, allow them to turn a little golden.
6. Add in Peanuts and Sesame Seeds and allow the Sesame Seeds to pop.
7. Add Asafoetida and Curry Leaves. Mix.
8. Add Ginger, Garlic, Green Chilies and Onions. Mix. Allow Onions to become translucent.
9. Add Tomatoes and cook for 2 minutes.
10. Add Coriander Powder, Cumin Powder, Rasam Powder, Turmeric Powder and a little salt. Mix well.
11. Pour in cooked Vatana and bring to a boil. Additional water may be added to get desired consistency. If you are making it in advance add extra water as Vatana’s soak most of the water. The consistency should be like tomato ketchup or tomato puree.
12. Garnish with Cilantro (Coriander Leaves) and Lime Juice.

Patties:

Ingredients:

Potatoes: approx 4 lbs (2 kg), boiled, peeled and mashed.

TIP: Take russet potatoes or any potatoes with a lot of starch

Ginger/Green Chili Paste:1 Tbsp

Roasted Cumin Powder: 2 Tsp

Sugar: 2 Tsp

Salt: to taste

Lemon Juice: 3 Tbsp or to taste

Cilantro (Coriander Leaves): 20 sprigs, finely chopped

Corn Starch: 4 Tbsp

Oil: for pan frying

Makes approx 30 patties

Procedure:

1. Boil, peel and mash Potatoes.
2. Add Ginger/Green Chili Paste, Roasted Cumin Powder, Sugar, Salt, Lemon Juice, Cilantro and mix well with hands
3. Add Corn Starch and mix well. Make it like potato dough.
4. Take a small portion (as big as you want the patty to be) and form a round and flat patty. Form all patties. You can use a spoon for measuring the mixture, so that all patties are of the same size.
5. Shallow fry patties with a little oil until nice and brown on both sides.

To assemble Ragda Patties:

1. Place 1 to 2 patties in a flat bowl or dish.
2. Pour 2-3 table spoons of zesty Ragda over patties, until patties are nicely covered.
3. Garnish with Coriander Chutney or Mint Chutney, Tamarind Chutney, Sev, chopped Onions and Cilantro.
4. Serve immediately. Serves 8 as a full meal.

Pani Puri (Golgappa)

Pani-Puri or Golgappa however you call it, it is one one the most favorite snack and appetizer for most of us. Here I am giving away my Maa's secret to make mouth watering Pani-Puri.

Pani Puri consists of 3 main things:

1. Pani
2. Puri 
3. Stuffing for Puris

I believe if you can make good Pani, it tastes yummy with any stuffing. I generally buy my Puris from any Indian Store or you can make them at home. So lets begin!

Pani (Spicy water for filling puffed wheat tortillas)

This will make Pani enough for about 30 Puris.

Ingredients:
For grinding:
Chopped Cillantro leaves: 3 cups
Chopped mint leaves: 1 1/2 cup
Green Chilies: 4-6 (can add more if you need more spice)
Ginger: one small piece about 1 inch long
Lemon juice: 2 T-spoon 
Salt to taste
Sugar to taste

 For flavor:
Chaat masala to taste
Roasted cumin powder: 2 T-spoon
Red chili powder: 1 T-spoon
Tamarind-Date Cutney: 4 Table spoons
Water: 5 cups

Procedure:

Add all ingredients for grinding to the grinder and grind them into fine paste. Add water if you need while grinding.
In a large bowl mix the paste with water, cumin powder, red chili powder, tamarind-date chutney  and chaat masala. Stir well and store it in refrigerator until its cold. You can also add ice cubes for chilled pani-puri.This can be stored in refrigerator for 2-3 days. Store it in an airtight container to preserve all the wonderful flavors and freshness of mint.




Stuffing:
You can experiment a lot with stuffing and can change it the way you want. Here are some options.

1. Potato stuffing
2. Sprouts like black chana, green moong etc.
3. Ragada made for Ragada pattice
4. Prepared Chana Masala

Topping:
Various toppings can be used separate or together as per your taste.

1. Barik Sev
2. Boondi
3. Chopped onions 

Putting it all together:
Once you have everything ready, making Pani-Puri (Golgappa) is really easy.

Procedure:

1. Make a small hole in Puri
2. Fill it half with stuffing of your choice
3. For a little crunch add topping that you like.
4. Fill this Stuffed Puri with Pani (Spicy Water) to the brim. 

and I promise you once you start eating these it's very difficult to stop :)

Gond ke Laddu

Ingredients:

Dry Dates: 300gm

Dry shredded coconut: 300 gm

Wheat flour : 500 gm (preferably course and not fine)

Sliced Almonds: 150 gm

Ghee: 400 gm

Goond: 150 gm

Powdered Sugar: 400 gm

Cardamom powder: 1 T spoon

Procedure:

1. Seed Dry dates, pond them. Grind Dry dates and dry coconut corse in grinder. 

2. Roast wheat flour on a very low flame until it turns a little reddish. (Do not add ghee at this point). This procedure takes long time almost 45min -1 hr. 

    Add ground dates and coconut powder. Add Sliced almonds and roast a little more. 

3. Heat ghee in a small pan, Fry goond in it until its fluffed and crisp. Remove it and set aside.

4. Add remaining ghee to the flour mixture and roast it on v low flame for sometime. It will start smelling really good. 

5. Remove it from heat and let it cool down to room temperature. 

6. Add Powdered sugar and cardamom powder and fried goond to the above mixture. 

7. Make laddus. If laddu are not binding together add more ghee.