Vegetable Cutlet are crisp, savory, tender patties made with a mix of hearty veggies, savory spices, fresh herbs and crispy breadcrumbs. Cutlet is a popular snack in Indian cuisine.
Rinse, peel and chop the veggies like carrots, potatoes, french beans.
Boil or steam the veggies until fork tender in a steamer or pressure cooker.
Drain all the water from the cooked veggies very well using a strainer. Set the cooked vegetables aside to become warm.
When the veggies are cooling, blitz 4 to 5 slices of bread in a food processor or blender till fine to get bread crumbs.
Set aside the bread crumbs in a plate or tray.
Making cutlet mixture
When warm, transfer the cooked vegetables in a bowl.
Mash them with a potato masher. Do not make a fine paste but keep it slightly chunkier with tiny bits of veggies. Set aside.
Crush roughly chopped ginger, green chillies and garlic (optional) in a mortar to a semi-fine paste.
Add the crushed ginger+green chili paste, red chili powder, cumin powder, garam masala powder, coriander powder, chopped coriander leaves, bread crumbs and salt as required to the mashed vegetables.
Instead of bread crumbs you can also add 2 to 3 slices of bread dipped in water and then squeezed completely of the water.
Mix everything very well. Check the taste and add more salt or the ground spice powders if needed to the mix vegetable cutlet dough.
In another small bowl, take all-purpose flour and water.
Stir and mix this mixture to get a smooth paste or slurry without any lumps.
Now take the cutlet mixture in a plate and using a cutlet mould, shape it or make small to medium-sized round cutlets by rolling and flattening the mixture in your palms.
Breading
Take a cutlet and dip in the all-purpose paste gently so that the paste gets coated all over the cutlet.
Then dredge the cutlet in breadcrumbs evenly and all over. Dust off any extra breadcrumbs. Crumb coat and bread each cutlet this way and set aside.
If you do not have breadcrumbs, then you can also use rava (sooji or cream of wheat).
Pan Frying Veg Cutlet
Heat 2 to 3 tablespoons oil for shallow frying in a skillet or frying pan. Dust the excess bread crumbs from the veggie cutlets sand place them in the medium hot oil.
When one side is light golden or golden, flip and fry the other side. Add more oil if needed.
Flip a couple of time more and fry all the vegetable cutlet till they are evenly golden and crisp from all sides.
Drain them on kitchen paper towels to remove excess oil. Fry the remaining cutlets this way add add more oil if required.
Serve the cutlet hot or warm with mint chutney or coriander chutney or tamarind chutney or tomato ketchup. You can also make burgers, wraps or sandwiches with them.
Video
Notes
You can alter and use your own combination of spices in the veg cutlet, e.g you can add black pepper powder. You can make them spicy by increasing the number of green chilies.
To make a coarse paste, you can just crush the garlic, ginger and green chilly coarsely with a pestle and mortar.
As I have mentioned in the post, you can use rava (cream of wheat) to coat the veg cutlet instead of bread crumbs.
Adding soaked bread or bread crumbs to the mixture binds the veg cutlet and prevents them from breaking while frying.
You can also shallow fry them instead of pan-frying. Deep frying these can be tricky.
The veggies you can add are carrots, potatoes, green peas, french beans, cauliflower, broccoli, bell pepper and corn. Avoid using watery or mushy vegetables like pumpkin, various gourds, eggplant, okra etc.
For some protein, you can add grated paneer or tofu, grated cheddar cheese or soya granules. Prep the soya granules as mentioned on the pack before you add them to the mashed vegetable mixture.
If you have burger buns, you can easily make veg burgers. Just apply butter and slightly roast the buns. Apply mayonnaise on the bun. Place the veg cutlet in the center. Cover it with shredded or grated cheese or a cheese slice. Top it with shredded veggies like cabbage, carrots, and lettuce or thinly sliced veggies like onion, tomatoes, cucumber. Cover with the other half of the bun and serve with tomato or mustard sauce.
The recipe can be scaled to make a large batch for parties.
Note that the approximate nutrition info is for 1 vegetable cutlet.