Corn Cutlet Recipe (Stuffed Corn Patties)

Corn cutlet or corn patties is delicious crispy melt in the mouth patties made with mashed potatoes and stuffed with a spicy corn filling. These corn tikki are a famous monsoon snack in some parts of India, especially in Western India.

About Corn Cutlet Recipe

Call them corn cutlet or corn patties or corn tikki, these are a flavorsome snack made with sweet corn. There are many ways to make this dish.

My recipe is a tad bit different and here a tangy herby corn stuffing is covered with a moist, tender and crispy potato cover.

Instead of making balls or croquettes, I have shaped these into a patty (tikki) and shallow fried. The outer crisp and melt in the mouth mashed potato cover is a contrast both in terms of taste and texture, to the tangy and chatpata spiced corn stuffing.

To make this aloo corn tikki, I used American sweet corn kernels. The corns impart a slight sweetish taste to the cutlet. But they would taste equally good with the Indian corn, which is not sweet.

On a recent trip to Mahabaleshwar (a popular hill station in the western ghats, of Maharashtra, India), we did took the opportunity of savoring into the famous Mahabaleshwar corn patties or makai patties.

There are many delicacies of corn offered in Mahabaleshwar. We settled for corn pattice and grilled corn cheese sandwich at one of the restaurants, in Mahabaleshwar.

The taste and flavors of everything we had there, still tickle on our taste buds. Both the corn cheese sandwich and Strawberries with Cream are our favorites.

In fact there are many restaurants and food stalls both in Panchgani and Mahabaleshwar which sell corn tikki. It is one of the popular street food there.

I have tried to recreate the same taste of the corn patties that we had in Mahabaleshwar and the result has been successful. The ones we had were shaped like balls and deep-fried.

On a second note, I also remember the corn patties which my mom would make. But her recipe is different from this one.

Serve corn patties hot or warm with coriander chutney or tomato sauce or mint chutney.

How to make Corn Cutlet or Corn Patties

Prepare Corn

1. First steam or cook 1 medium-sized corn cob till the kernels are tender and cooked well. Remove the corn kernels with a knife and keep them aside.

You can use American sweet corn or regular desi corn. You can steam in a stovetop pressure cooker or Instant pot or in a pan adding water as needed.

You can also use pack of uncooked corn kernels and steam them. I have never tried making this recipe with canned corn kernels as I prefer to use fresh ingredients.

2. In a bowl or a small pan, take the cooked corn kernels. Add the following ingredients:

• 1 teaspoon finely chopped ginger
• ½ teaspoon red chili powder Or 1 to 2 chopped green chilies (you can also add both, about 1 green chili and ¼ teaspoon red chili powder)
• 4 teaspoon chopped coriander leaves
• ½ teaspoon chaat masala powder
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice
• salt as required

3. Mix well and check the taste. Add more of the spices or salt if required. This spiced masaledaar corn stuffing tastes damn good on its own. 

I have not minced the corn. But if you want you can coarsely grind the corn in a mixer-grinder without the spices, coriander leaves etc.

Make Potato Mixture

4. In another bowl, peel and grate 3 medium-sized boiled potatoes and then mash them with a fork or potato masher.

You can boil the potatoes in a pan or stovetop pressure cooker or in an instant pot. Peel the potatoes when they are slightly hot or warm.

Make sure that there is no water logged in the potatoes. So drain them very well before you mash them. Let the mashed potatoes cool at room temperature.

5. Add 2 to 3 tablespoons rice flour, ¼ teaspoon cumin powder, ¼ teaspoon coriander powder, ¼ teaspoon red chili powder and salt as required.

I have used rice flour to bind the patties. You can also use cornstarch (called cornflour in India) to bind.

Other options are bread pulp (soaked and squeezed bread slices), breadcrumbs arrowroot flour and even gram flour (besan). Gram flour will give its taste to the cutlet.

You can also add buckwheat flour (kutttu ka atta), water chestnut flour (singhare ka atta). But remember the taste will change.

Assemble & Shape Patties

6. Mix and then form equal sized balls from the mixture.

7. Take each ball and flatten it on your palm. Place a few teaspoons of corn stuffing in the center.

8. Cover the edges and shape them into medium or large patties.

Before stuffing and shaping the patties, apply some oil to your palms. This method helps to shape the tikki and reduces the stickiness from the palms.

Make Corn Cutlet

9. Place the stuffed corn cutlet in medium hot oil on a tava or griddle or skillet or a frying pan. I have shallow fried the patties. You can also pan-fry with less oil.

Use any neutral flavored oil for frying and keep the heat to medium.

10. When one side becomes golden and crisp, then turn over gently with a spatula and fry the other side.

11. Flip again when the second side is also golden and crisp. Flip the corn cutlet a few more times if needed, to get an even golden color and crisp texture.

In the photo below, the two patties that you see on the extreme right-hand side are potato-paneer patties.

12. Remove the fried corn patties on a paper kitchen napkin to remove excess oil.

12. Serve Corn Cutlet hot or warm with Coriander Chutney or Mint Chutney or ketchup. You can also add these corn patties to burger buns or make sandwiches with them. They make for a crispy tasty Evening Snack.

Expert Tips

• Feel free to use the white corn (desi corn) or sweet corn. Both ways these patties tastes great.
• If making for small kids, then omit adding green chillies and red chill powder.
• You can also opt to bake or air-fry these corn cutlet. But with baking or air-frying you won’t get a good crispy texture that comes from shallow-frying. To cut down the oil, you can also pan fry in 2 to 3 tablespoons oil on a skillet or tawa.
• While I have used rice flour for binding, flours like cornstarch (cornflour), tapioca flour, gram flour, arrowroot flour and even breadcrumb work well.
• In place of coriander leaves, you can also add mint leaves or use equal proportions of both mint and coriander leaves.

Corn Cutlet recipe from the archives was first published on May 2010.