I won first prize for this recipe at a cooking competition earlier this month in Mumbai. I’m a homemaker with a passion for cooking, based in Mumbai, though I’ve grown up in Dubai. I share this recipe with tabloid! readers and hope they’ll enjoy making it as much as I did.
Ingredients
For koftas:
100g paneer (Indian cottage cheese)
2 medium potatoes, boiled
1 sweet potato, boiled
1 lotus stem, boiled
1 tbs ginger paste
1 tbs garlic paste
1 green chilli, finely chopped
1 tbs kasuri methi (dried fenugreek leaves), roasted
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp cumin powder
1 tsp black pepper
1 tsp garam masala (mixed Indian spices)
50g cashews, crushed
50g almonds, crushed
50g raisins
2 tbs bread crumbs
2 tbs all purpose flour
2 tbs corn flour
Green and orange food colouring
Oil for deep frying
For gravy:
2 medium onions, boiled and mashed
1 tbs ginger paste
2 tbs garlic paste
2-3 green chilies, crushed
1 cup cashew-almond paste (soak 50g of cashew and 50g of almond overnight and grind to a fine paste)
½ cup milk
2 tbs mawa (thickened milk, available at Indian sweet shops in the UAE)
4 tbs fresh cream
2 tbs whole milk
1 tbs paste made with milk and all purpose flour
8 tbs oil
Whole spices
1 inch stick of cinnamon
2 cloves
2 cardamom
½ tsp cumin
1 bay leaf
½ tsp black pepper
2 star anise
For garnishing:
¼ tsp kasuri methi, roasted
¼ fresh coriander, chopped
¼ tsp fresh cream
¼ tsp crushed paneer
Few roasted cashews
Instructions
For koftas:
Mash boiled potatoes and sweet potato. Add a dash of green food colour and ginger and garlic pastes. Season with finely chopped green chilli, salt, cumin powder, black pepper and kasuri methi. Add all purpose flour, corn flour and breadcrumbs. Mix well and keep aside.
Mash paneer and seasoning with the same spices. Keep aside.
Mash the boiled lotus stem and add seasoning. Add a dash of orange food colour, mix well and keep aside.
Now take a tablespoon full of the green potato mix, flattening into a disc. Take a little less amount of the paneer mix, flattening into a disc, slightly smaller than the potato disc. Place it on the green disc. Add a teaspoon full of the lotus stem mix on the two discs with some crushed almond and cashew, and a raisin. Fold into a round or oval ball. Deep fry and keep aside.
For gravy:
Heat the oil and add whole spices. Saute for a minute. Add the boiled onion paste. Cook until the onion is lightly browned. Add crushed green chillis and continue cooking on low heat until the oil begins to separate. Put milk, crumbled mawa and cashew-almond paste and bring to a boil. Add the flour and milk paste to thicken if required. Stir in the cream. Add salt.
Garnish with fresh coriander, roasted kasuri methi, crushed paneer, dash of fresh cream and roasted cashews.
Serve with garlic-cheese naans (Indian bread). You can serve the koftas without the gravy as starters with green mint chutney too.
— Varsha Wadhwa is a Gulf News reader.
