Any kind of kachori aloo ki subzi makes me weak in the knees and you all know it well how we waited to have a divine taste of this luxury in Haridwar . I was so smitten by the taste that I had to repeat that experience in my own style, low fat style that is.
Don't tell me a fried recipe can't be low fat. I say lowest possible fat ...okay ?
So when I do such things at home I do it in the lowest possible amount of fat and since frying cannot be substituted with anything for a kachori, the only fatty indulgence of this kachori is a quick swim in hot oil. It would be better if you know that a firm dough of whole wheat flour, the kachori stuffed with care so that it doesn't get punctured and a quick microwaving of the kachori before the hot oil swim makes it quite low on fat content, believe me friends !!
making the kachoris...
Make a stiff dough with whole wheat flour with salt to taste and some ajwain seeds thrown in. Slightly coarse wheat flour is used for these kachoris.
A bowl of soaked mung or urad daal with skin (usually it is husked urad daal)is ground with ginger, green chilies and a bit of garam masala. I microwaved this mung daal paste, stirring it 4-5 times after every minute and the paste becomes the consistency of the dough. In the authentic recipe this paste is fried (bhuno) in oil till it gets brown and dehydrated. dry frying this paste results in a smoky flavor but I preferred a low fat spicy version and gave a miss to the smokiness.
A quick tip : do not add any water while making the daal paste and add the seasonings according to your tolerance to heat. Here is how the dough and the stuffing look like.
Now pinch off small portions of dough , make a bowl of it and place a little daal mixture into it . Now seal the dough , flatten the resulting ball and roll into a thick disk .
The rolled kachori is first microwaved for a minute before going into hot oil directly, so keep the kadai with oil ready and hot when you start stuffing, rolling and microwaving the kachoris one by one .
Do the stuffing and rolling beforehand if you can't handle all the four activities at a time . Microwaving and frying will be easy to handle in the second step.
Now the ingredients of the aloo subzi ...
2-3 large boiled potatoes
2 green cardamoms
15 cloves
2 tsp coriander seeds
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp black pepper corns
an inch stick of cinnamon
2 bay leaves
2-3 green chilies broken
2 black cardamoms
2 tsp of everyday curry masala
1 tsp turmeric powder
2 tsp mustard oil
a pinch of asafoetida
salt to taste
procedure...
Peel and cube the potatoes, keep aside.
Heat oil in a kadai and throw in the asafoetida, followed quickly by all the spices except those typed in bold. You must have noticed that the quantity of the cloves is much more than a normal curry but that was the highlight of the aloo subzi we had there in Haridwar , and that was the reason why i liked this aloo curry so much . feel free to reduce the amount of cloves if it is too much for you , it is a hot spicy curry with very strong notes of cloves.
Add the spices typed in bold and quickly add the potatoes mashing them while adding to the pan . Thrash with a spatula and mix well.
I added finely chopped green coriander at this point as I was not pouring any green coriander chutney over the kachori aloo like Haridwar . Make chutney if you feel like, I served hemp seeds and coriander greens chutney on the side it this time.
Add enough water to cover the mix and some more to make the curry almost watery... or as thin or thick you like it. Add salt to taste and let the curry cook on low flame till a nice cloves aroma wafts through the kitchen.
A kachori can't be healthier than this. I hope Pawan kashyap, the kachori wala at gau ghaat, Haridwar is not reading this and I hope he reads my post going all ga ga about his kachoris....
