Alur Chop / Mashed Potato Fritter

"Fall is a shivering touch of cold

and cozy quilts,

Fall is the color of  orange

and red and yellow. 

Fall is the season of pumpkins 

and scarecrows.

Fall is the season of harvest and saying thanks

Autumn is Fall and Fall is autumn."

The entry of the chilling wind in northern hemisphere that gives us goosebumps and early morning shiver, makes us shuffle our closet with jackets in handy instead of light cotton clothes. Bare tress seem to wait to get covered with snow-quilt  in the ushering winter. All these change the world from the colorful days to the black and white days; make us almost concealed at home most of the time. In the chilling season we can spend our leisure while watching our favorite thriller movie or reading some novels, or we can play some indoor games with our kids at home. To go with the mood we need a good snack with a cup of hot coffee, tea or chocolate. And to serve with tea or coffee what can be better than alur chop!

I feel that all the nations in the world are more or less inclined to potato dishes despite having the health hazard associated with it. Also we can not discard carb  from our daily diet, rather we can optimize it. therefore we can treat ourselves once in a week or may be fortnight with hot singara/samosa or alur chop kind of food. This sounds like a self consolation..Isn't it!!!

As diabetes has erased potato from my daily diet, I notice that the crave for potato has increased more than before. Although I can not eat potato, my next post is dedicated to all potato lovers like me in earth. Also in this chilling cold season approaching we feel to chill out our evenings with a cup of ginger tea with sizzling snack to spice up the evening. So here I present you our favorite snack Alur chop or mashed potato fritter.

 

 

Ingredients:

1. Potato: 3 medium size

2. Asafoetida or Hing: 1/2 teaspoon

3. Ginger grated: 2 teaspoon

4. Turmeric powder: 1.5 teaspoon

5. Green chillies: 5

6. Besan or Gram flour: 2 cups

7. Corn flour: 2 Tablespoon

8. Baking soda: 1 teaspoon

9. Oil for Deep Fry

10. Black salt: 1 teaspoon

11. Onion seeds or Kalo jeere or Kalonji: 1/2 a teaspon

12.  Red chilli powder: 1 teaspoon

13. Sugar: 1/2 teaspoon

Steps:

1. Boil the potatoes with skin on. You can microwave, too, but make sure that the skin of potato does not dry up in the cooking process. If you are boiling the potatoes in water, add some salt, too. This will help to speed up the cooking and also will inject some salt inside the potatoes. 

2. Cool the boiled potatoes. Take the skin off now and then mash it nicely.

3. Meanwhile you can grate ginger and green chillies. You can use finely chopped chillies, too. I wanted to make my alur chop really spicy, therefore, added the shredded chillies for this purpose.

5. Heat 2 teaspoons of oil in a pan. Add shredded ginger followed by green chillies, asafoetida or hing,  turmeric powder and red chilli powder. When the spices are fried, add the mashed potatoes to the pan. Mix it well with the spice mixture. Add some salt for taste in the filling. Turn off the heat.

6.  Now to  make the batter mix Besan or gram flour with corn flour and baking soda. Mix it thoroughly before adding water or any other ingredients. This will help to stop forming any lumps in the batter later. In this mixture also add salt, little amount (1/2 teaspoon) of sugar, onion seeds or kalo jeere or kalonji, turmeric powder, red chilli powder and slowly add water to make a thick batter.

7. Heat oil for deep frying. Add some hot oil into the besan batter (Say 2-3 teaspoons to 1 tablespoon). This will make your chop or fritter more crispier. 

8. Now take some amount of potato mix and form a ball out of that. Then flatten the balls to make disks. I could make 8 disks. 

9. Now dip the disks into the besan batter and deep fry into hot oil. When one side browns up flip it over to fry the other side. When two sides are fried equally, take the chop/fritters out of oil and put them in a paper towel so that it absorbs excess oil from it. 

10. Fry all the disks one by one or two at once. I would suggest you to fry in small batches so that it gets cooked evenly. If you have a wide pan for deep frying, you can use bigger batches as well.

11. Alur chop is ready to serve. Before serving you can sprinkle some black salt on top. Serve it with hot tea or coffee along with puffed rice or murhi-makha.

 

   Enjoy!!!