Creativity becomes me...: From Aloo ke Paranthe to Aloo Tikki's

Not the best looking picture, but they tasted superb! =)

Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that I'd be writing a blog post on anything remotely related to food.

And yet, here I am talking about aloo (potato) and gobi (cauliflower) ke paranthe (stuffed bread) and tikki's (patties?). Whaddaya gunna do, eh? *shrugs*

To be fair, I've always enjoyed cooking. Never had much of a chance trying my hand at it while I was growing up (that's what happens when you have the world's best cook for a mother!), but when I moved into an apartment with my best friend during our M.Sc. days, I did my fair share of cooking.

That's where experimentation began. And boy, was it fun!

And now that we (my husband and I) have moved to the UK, the experimentation with cooking has begun yet again. =)

Two nights ago I gave my Mom in India a frantic call asking her to email me recipes for aloo and gobi ke paranthe. It was, after all, Rohit's 'cheat' day, which meant carbs galore. No wheat, no gluten, but good ol' carbs.

I made the aloo mix for his and gobi mix for my paranthe, got out some gluten free aata (flour) and went to work on them paranthe.

And what a disaster they were!

I shall not dwell into why (but if questioned, I will blame gluten free aata entirely).

So here I was with a lot - and I mean a lot of aloo and gobi mix but with no intention of trying to make paranthe with gluten free aata again. Ever again.

But I couldn't let all that mix go to waste either. So what do I do? Why, I recycle, of course! =)

I had this ingenius (ok, not that ingenius of even original, but hey!) idea to make tikki's from the mix. And despite what you're thinking, they turned out pretty damn good. =)

Let's take a walk through the tikki preparation, shall we?

What you'll need (or ingredients)

potatoes / cauliflower
onion
ginger
garlic
green chilies
garam masala
chaat masala (another link)
salt
chili powder
amchoor powder (another link)
aata (flour) - gluten free, preferably!

Note: all masalas above should be readily available in a store near you!

What you're going to have to do (or procedure)

[This mix can be used for aloo / gobi paranthe as well as aloo tikki's]

Boil potatoes and allow them to cool off. You can run them under cold water to speed up the process. Once done, peel off the skin and mash the potatoes.
Or, wash the cauliflower and allow it to dry. Once dry, grate the cauliflower.
Chop up an onion into real small pieces and add to the potatoes.
To this, add some grated ginger, garlic and green chilies. Make sure these are grated well else you'll bite into them.
Add garam masala, chaat masala, amchoor powder (just a pinch / pinch and a half) salt and some red chilli powder (optional if you have green chillies in there) to this mix.
I won't give you a specific quantity to add but when you've added the different ingredients, grab a chunk and taste. If it's tangy enough for you, then you've done it right. =)

Now grab a bowl, pour some aata (gluten free!) into it, add a little water and make a thick paste.
Get some oil in a pan and heat it.
While this oil gets heated up, start rolling the potato + spice mix into little round, flat balls (or tikki's!).
Dip these tikki's (one at a time) in the aata mix and add it to the oil to fry. This layer of aata mix is required to ensure the potatoes don't disintegrate as soon as they hit the hot oil. =)