Beetroot Kofta Curry

I never tried anything crazy like this until I saw the "Food Palette Red" event being hosted by TorviewToronto. All I make with beetroot is a simple curry with nothing fancy (I mean no masalas nothing, except for one onion, salt and red chilli powder). I was internally being poured with so many ideas. Beetroot burgers, koftas, manchurias, nuggets which is a close cousin of burgers, but I was not sure how they would turn out. I decided on koftas as it would come handy for the chapathis that I make daily for our dinner time. I made them once but was not satisfied. I thought of dropping the idea, but again internal war, I wanted to achieve it finally. I made a little tweak and made these which are appreciated by all family members. Hope you all will also like.

Here is how you make it:

3 medium potatoes
1 medium beetroot
1/2 tsp red chilli powder
1/2 tsp cumin powder
1/2 tbsp coriander powder
1/2 tsp chole masala
1/2" piece of ginger grated
2-3 garlic cloves grated
Salt as per taste
(you can adjust all as per your liking)

1. Wash, peel and boil potatoes until soft. ( I cooked them in pressure cooker along with rice for 3 whistles)
2. Grate beetroot, add little salt and squeeze away any excess water. Do not throw that away as we are going to use it in the gravy.
3. Mash potatoes, add the grated beetroot and all the above given masalas and form them into balls.
4. Heat little oil in kuzi paniyaram (gunta pongala) pan and drop each ball into each hole.
5. Let them fry until they turn red and done.
Take them out and keep them aside.

For gravy:

2 medium onions
3 medium tomatoes
1/2 tbsp ginger garlic paste
1 tbsp coriander powder
1/2 tbsp cumin powder
1/2 tsp garam masala
1 tsp kasuri methi
1/2 tsp red chilli powder
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
2 tbsp oil
a fistful of cashews
Salt as per taste

1. Boil onions and tomatoes for a min in hot boiling water. Make a cross mark on tomatoes so that they will become tender soon.
2. Soak cashews by taking that hot water. Remove onions and grind them to paste.
3. Heat oil in pan and add onion paste and also the beetroot water that we reserved above.
4. Add ginger garlic paste and fry for another minute until the raw smell is gone.
5. Add coriander powder, cumin powder, turmeric powder and fry for few more minutes.
6. Puree tomatoes and cashews and put that paste into the above gravy.
7. Add the water that we use to boil onion and tomatoes and let it cook for a while
8. Add garam masala, kasuri methi, salt and red chilli powder and cook until the gravy leaves oil and slightly thickens.


Serving: just before serving bring koftas and gravy together and serve with hot hot chapathis. If you drop koftas into the gravy immediately then they will get soaked into the gravy totally can break, which I think many of us food bloggers know here.

This is off to TorViewToronto for her lovely event "Food Palatette Red" being hosted at TorView.