Valentine's Day Specials: Vegetable Patties with beets

Written by Indira on February 13, 2014 in Anytime Snacks, Appetizers, Indian

Valentine’s day is just around the corner (just 1 day away actually!)but in fact in my house the celebrations start a week in advance since our wedding anniversary comes a week before Valentine’s Day. So for the past one week I have been busy doing one of three things in the kitchen: Baking sweet goodies, coloring everything pink or red and turning everything into ‘heart shaped’ works of art! (at least I think so) 🙂 For instance heart shaped sandwiches, heart shaped pancakes and now it was the turn to do the same to my vegetable patties(cutlets). I also wanted to give them a pink or red color …and so I thought what better way to do that than by adding beets? Natural color plus super healthy too! 🙂 In fact I was so impressed reading about the health benefits of beets that I have been using it quite a bit! Will be posting the other recipes soon!

Before I give the recipe, a little more information on ‘Beets’ – Beets, may be one reason behind the long and healthy lives that the Russians had!. These colorful root vegetables contain powerful nutrient compounds that help protect against heart disease, birth defects and certain cancers, especially colon cancer. You can read more about the health benefits of beets here.

Now about these patties what can I say? Adding beets made them even more delicious – that tinge of sweetness combined with the heat from the spices makes it just perfectly tasting! These patties really have a perfect texture too – crispy on the outside with the breadcrumb coating and then soft on the inside with the potato and vegetable mixture. Hmm Hmm Good. Who needs ketchup?. Best part was that the kids gobbled them up so fast and did not even notice there were ‘yucky’ vegetables in them! 🙂

This recipe makes about 12-14 patties(cutlets)
Preparation time: 30 minutes ; Cooking time : 20 minutes
Ingredients:
1/2 of a medium size carrot, chopped
1/2 of a medium size beetroot,peeled and chopped
1 cup peas
2 potatoes
2 tsp light olive oil
1/2 of a medium size onion
1 tsp fennel seeds
1/2 tsp ginger,finely chopped
1/2 tsp garlic, finely chopped
1/2 tsp salt or per taste
1/4 tsp red chilli (cayenne pepper)
pinch of turmeric
1/4 tsp garam masala

1/4 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup water
Bread crumbs about 1 cup
1/2 cup oil for shallow frying the patties

Method:

Cook the carrots, peas and beets using very little water in either the microwave or on the stove. (Take care to not add too much water). There should hardly be any water left when they are cooked(about 7-8 minutes on the stove or 2-3 minutes in the microwave).

Boil the potatoes separately, peel them and set aside

In a medium size pan or skillet, add the olive oil. When hot, add the fennel seeds and toast them for about 1 minute on medium heat. then add the chopped onions and saute for about 2-3 minutes. Then add the ginger and the garlic and saute for another 1 minute. Then add the salt, turmeric, red chilli powder and the garam masala. Turn the heat off.

Now add the above spice mixture to the veggie mixture and add the potatoes too. Mash them all well using a masher. Let cool for a couple minutes and then make heart shaped (or any other shape that you fancy!) patties. (I did not have the right size heart shaped cookie cutter so I made the heart shape using my hands hence the lopsidedness of some of these hearts! 🙂 )

Once you have finished making all the patties, take a bowl and mix the flour and water to form a slurry without any lumps. Set the bread crumbs on a tray.

Now heat a large frying pan with the oil. Dip the patties each in the flour mixture first and then coat with bread crumbs. Shallow fry on medium heat until golden brown on both sides 9about 2 minutes on each side). Remove on paper towels to drain off excess oil.

Serve hot with ketchup or tamarind chutney.