We'd asked you, dear readers, to send us your recipes and videos of what you are cooking during the lockdown.
Rediff reader Vishaka Damwani sent us these amazing videos of street food recipes you can make at home.
Punjabi Samosa
Watch the video to see how to make Punjabi Samosas:
Ingredients
For samosa crust
- 200 gm maida
- 1/2 tsp carom seeds
- Salt to taste
- 3 tbsp cooking oil
For potato masala filling
- 3 tbsp boiled green peas
- 3 boiled potatoes (mashed)
- ½ tsp saunf (crushed)
- ½ tsp whole dhaniya seeds (crushed)
- ¼ tsp grated ginger
- ¼ tsp asafoetida
- 1 tsp dry mango powder
- 2 tbsp cooking oil
- 1 tsp garam masala
- 1 green chilly (finely chopped)
- 1 tbsp coriander leaves (finely chopped)
- Salt to taste
- Oil for frying
Method
- In a bowl add maida, salt as per your taste and ajwain seeds (crush the seeds with your palm) and mix them all together.
- Add some oil and mix all ingredients together.
- Add a little water to make the dough. Please ensure that the dough is hard and not soft.
- Cover the dough with a wet cloth and let it rest for 30 minutes.
For the filling
- Heat a pan. Add 2 tbsp oil to heat it.
- When the oil is hot enough, add crushed saunf, crushed whole dhaniya and let them crackle.
- Add grated ginger, green chilli, hing and roast them for a minute.
- Add boiled peas and let it cook for 2 minutes. Add mashed potatoes.
- Mix all the ingredients together with the spices and add dry mango powder, salt as per your taste and garam masala powder.
- Mix all masalas thoroughly and add coriander leaves.
- Keep it aside to cool
To make samosas
- After the dough has rested for about 30 minutes, take a little oil and knead the dough again for 2 to 3 minutes to make it smooth.
- Divide the dough in 5 equal portions and roll it into a ball. While rolling, don’t use any dry flour on it.
- Flatten the dough with a rolling pin, and give it an oval shape. The rolled dough should be around 10” long and 5 to 6” wide.
- Make sure that the rolled dough is not too thin or the filling may come out. It should also not be too thick. Try to give the whole rolled dough a uniform thickness.
- Cut the rolled dough into two equal portions, with the help of knife.
- Take one of the portions and rub a few drops of water on the edges of the straight side. Fold the dough together to form a cone shape.
- Take one tbsp of the potato masala filling and gently fill it inside the cone, with the help of a spoon.
- Rub some water on the open ends and then close the open ends. Seal the ends properly by pressing the edges lightly with your fingers.
- Heat oil in a pan and deep fry the samosas on low flame in small batches until they turn golden brown and crispy.
- Do not cook on high flame as the crust may become golden, but the samosa filling may not get cooked properly.
- Serve the crispy samosas with green chutney.
Vada Pav with dry red chutney
Ingredients
For spicy dry red chutney
- 2 tbsp peanuts
- 1 tsp white til
- 2 tbsp desiccated coconut
- 12 whole red chillies
- 10 garlic cloves with peel
- 1 tsp Kashmiri red chilli powder for colour
- Salt to taste
For the potato masala stuffing
- 3 boiled potatoes
- 12 garlic cloves
- 12 curry leaves
- 3 green chillies
- 1 piece of ginger
- ½ tsp asafoetida
- ½ tsp mustard seeds
- ½ tsp turmeric powder
- 2 tbsp oil
- Salt to taste
For the besan batter
- 200 gm besan
- 1 tsp baking soda
- ½ tsp red chilli powder
- Salt to taste
- Water
- Oil for frying
Method
- To make spicy dry red chutney
- Roast all the ingredients except the Kashmiri red chilli powder and keep them aside till they cool to room temperature.
- Grind all the roasted ingredients for 1-2 minutes and add Kashmiri red chilli powder and salt, before grinding it again for a few seconds, till the chutney is coarse and ready to use. Adding the Kashmiri red chilli powder later gives this chutney a nice shining red colour.
For the stuffing
- Heat a pan and add 2 tbsp oil.
- Add crushed ginger, garlic and green chillies. Let them roast for a few seconds before adding the asafoetida, mustard seeds and curry leaves.
- Roast all these ingredients for a minute. Add ½ tsp turmeric powder. Mix all the ingredients well and add the boiled mashed potatoes.
- Mix the potatoes with the masalas and then add the green coriander leaves. Cook this mixture for around 5 minutes on slow flame.
For the batter
- In a bowl add the besan and salt as per your taste, baking soda, red chilli powder and mix them all together.
- Add a little water to make a light smooth batter. Ensure that there are no lumps in the batter.
To make batata vadas
- Make medium size balls from the potato masala.
- Heat oil in a frying pan till it is medium hot and then lower the gas flame. This is important as otherwise the vadas may become golden in colour fast, but remain uncooked from inside.
- Add 2 tbsp of the hot oil to the besan batter. This will help make the outer covering of the vada’s crispy.
- Dip the potato balls in the besan batter till they are properly coated and then add them one-by-one to the frying pan.
- Take only one ball at one time.
- Fry 5-6 vadas in one batch, depending on the size of your pan and let them fry, till they are golden in colour.
- Serve the vadas with pav and spicy dry red chutney.
Chana Dal Pattice and Chhole
Ingredients
For the chole masala
- 250 gm boiled chick peas
- 2 onions (finely chopped)
- Paste of 3 tomatoes grinded with 10 garlic cloves and a piece of ginger
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 cinnamon stick, 2-3 inches long
- 5 black peppercorns
- 4 cloves
- 1 tsp cumin seeds
- ½ tsp asafoetida
- ½ tsp turmeric powder
- 1 tsp red chilli powder
- 1 tsp coriander powder
- 1 tsp chole masala powder
- 1 tsp dry mango powder
- 4 tbsp oil
- Salt as per taste
For garnish
- Coriander leaves and onion rings
For pattice
- 4 boiled potatoes (mashed)
- Bread crumbs made from 4 slices of bread
- 1 cup chana dal boiled with salt and turmeric
- ½ tsp dry mango powder
- ½ tsp garam masala
- ½ tsp red chilli powder
- Salt as per taste
- 4 pav
Method
To make the chole masala
- In a kadai add oil and let it heat for 2 minutes
- Add all the whole spices and jeera. After the jeera crackles add asafoetida and finely chopped onions
- Sauté this mixture on medium flame till the onion becomes golden in colour.
- Add the prepared tomato paste and mix all the ingredients together.
- After 2-3 minutes, add salt as per your taste.
- Add dry masalas (tumeric powder, red chilli powder and coriander powder) and mix everything well.
- Cook this mixture for 5 minutes till oil leaves the sides.
- Add boiled chole and mix it well with the prepared masala. Add chole masala powder, aamchur and mix them well with the masala.
- Add 1 glass of water to the masala to make the gravy and let it cook for 5 minutes.
- Garnish it with coriander leaves and onion rings, before serving.
To make Channa dal aloo pattice
- To make coating, add the boiled mashed potatoes to a bowl, salt and half of the prepared bread crumbs (the remaining will be used for coating the pattice).
- Mix all the ingredients together, so that your potato mixture is ready to be used.
- To make chana dal masala, take 1 cup of boiled chana dal (soft, but not too mushy). Add aamchur powder, garam masala, and red chilli powder to the chana dal and mix all the ingredients together.
- Shape it as you like (circular, oval and even heart shape). If you have a mould, grease the sides of the mould with oil, first.
- Take a little of the potato mixture and spread it evenly in the bottom of the mould, ensuring that you cover all the edges of the mould properly. On top of the potato mixture, add ½ tsp of the chana dal masala and cover it with the potato mixture. Spread the potato mixture evenly, while maintaining a proper shape.
- Coat the pattice with bread crumb and keep it in a refrigerator for 30 minutes to set it.
- After 30 minutes, shallow fry the pattice in small batches on both sides till they have a nice golden colour.
- You can serve the pattice with green chutney or make them more tasting and appetising by adding the prepared chole masala on top of them and garnishing the entire dish with spicy green chutney, sweet and sour imli chutney and fine chopped onions.
- Serve hot with pav.
