Beetroot Patties

I have had numerous requests for vegetarian recipes and while I do cook a lot of vegetables, I am not a great vegetarian cook. Blame it on my mangalorean catholic genes, but honestly I know very few vegetarian dishes, that mostly include a stir fry with onion and seasoning.... I know.... Too bad right. It's a wonder then, that I was off meat for about 6 years in between, but I was a pescatarian then, so I gorged on seafood, plenty of it.


Anyway, I think some good vegetarian recipes would make a good addition to my coking repertoire and in an honest effort, I have been trying out some new vegetarian recipes. This explains the beetroot patties concept, doesn't it. To my vegetarian readers, I'm finally responding to your requests and to my non vegetarian food lovers, these patties are good, trust me.

So I glanced at a few recipes before I made these, but a lot of them seemed a bit too complicated for my liking. And so I had to as usual, just skip the extra bits and make this as simple as I could. And as true encouragement for my honest effort, they turned out great. I feasted on them and the foodie on duty(aka the hubby) loved them. So you can be rest assured this is a good idea.

It was pretty simple making these. First I put the beets and potatoes to boil. A couple of whistles in the pressure cooker did the trick.

Then, I stir fried some onions, corriander and masalas for taste .

Combined the two, shaped them into little patties, a quick roll in some rava and they went into the pan.




So here's the recipe:

You will need :

2 large potatoes
2 large  beetroots
1large onion, finely chopped
1/4 tsp turmeric powder
1/4 tsp chilli powder
1/2 tsp cumin powder
a sprinkling of chaat powder (optional)
 a handful of corriander leaves, finely chopped.
Rava (semolina)  about 1/4 cup
Salt and pepper to taste
oil for frying.

Begin with putting the potatoes and beetroots to boil .Wash them thoroughly and put them to boil , you don't need to peel them. It's easier doing that once they have boiled .The potatoes will boil faster than the beets, so leave them whole. If the beets are large, just cut them into 2-3 chunks. Put them together in a pressure cooker with a little water and let it cook for about 3 whistles or 7-10 mins. While it cooks, chop the onions and the corrainder. In a pan heat 1 tsp oil and fry the onions, they don't need to brown, but just soften and change colour. Then add the powders, turmeric, cumin and chilli. I added the chaat powder, coz I saw it lying in my shelf, you can skip it. Fry for about a minute or two season with salt and pepper and then add the corriander leaves.

When the beets and potatoes have cooked, let them cool a bit , You can run them under some tap water . Peel off the skin, and  grate the beets and potatoes using a box grater. This is so much easier than mashing them. Also don't worry if you have few bits of potato or beets that haven't boiled too soft, they are going to grate equally anyway. To the grated potato and beets add the onion mixture and mix it well. If you find the mixture too wet, you can add some bread crumbs, I didn't need to. Just take bits of mixture and shape into rounds, don't worry about getting the perfect shape, you'll find it easier to shape them once you've rolled them in the rava. So once you shape them into rounds, just coat them with the rava. You can refrigerate them and cook them just before serving time. Since I was trying these for the first time, I tried frying a batch of 2 to see how I liked the taste. I was happy with the taste. So try them and see if you'd like to add some salt, or chilli or whatever you think is lacking.

Heat a little oil and then fry the patties, about 2-3 minutes on each side, don't turn them till they they crisp well on each side, they're going to break otherwise. Serve with some good ol ketchup and you're good to go


So I'm not going to lie to you that this is one of those surprise dishes, where you can't tell what's in it. I once made a chocolate cake with beetroot and no one could tell, I will share that recipe too with you. However these patties look like beetroot and taste like beetroot but the good part is that they taste great. Happy Cooking.....