Cabbage And Other Vegetable) Kofta Curry
Patta Gobhi ke Kofte
Mamta Gupta
This is a delicious vegetable curry made out of a relatively cheap vegetable. You can make quite a few koftas when cabbages are in season or surplus in your garden, and freeze them for use later on.
Koftas can be made with other vegetables like cauliflowers, carrots, courgettes etc. They can be served as a snack, fresh and hot, with any chutney or sauce of your choice. These koftas are gluten free. Makes 12 koftas, serve 3-4
Edited October 2020
Ingredients
250 gm, cabbage* see notes, finely grated (not coarse) (you can add other vegetables like grated carrots
1 inch piece of ginger, peeled and grated (optional)
3-5 tbsp. gram flour or besan to bind. You may need more.
Salt to taste
2-3 green chillies, finely chopped (adjust to taste)
1/4 tsp. red chilli powder, optional
Oil for deep frying.
1 tbsp. chopped coriander leaves (optional)
1/2 tsp. Garam Masala or roast cumin seeds, coarsely ground
Basic Curry Sauce or any curry sauce of your choice
Instructions
Place grated cabbage in a bowl and add salt, chilli powder and green chillies and mix well.
If cabbage is very fresh and appears too watery after grating, squeeze out some of the water.
Add gram flour, 2-3 tbsp. only at first, and mix it well, until cabbage has a binding consistency. *You may need to add 1-2 tbsp. more of gram flour to get the right consistency. You should either be able to make balls (Koftae) from the mix or be able to drop large dollops of it into the oil.
Heat oil to just before smoking point. If oil is too hot, they will cook too fast, leaving the centre uncooked.
Make balls with wetted or oiled fingers and palms and slide gently into the hot oil. Alternatively, drop blobs of the mix into the oil, either with your fingers or with the help of a spoon . Use a slotted spoon, removing koftas one by one as they cook and adding more in their place. The heat should be moderate. If cooked in very hot oil, insides will remain raw.
Fry until deep brown, turning from time to time. Drain on an absorbent paper.
Add to a heated Basic Curry Sauce of choice just before serving.
Sprinkle garam masala and garnish with coriander leaves.
Serve hot with Chapatti or Plain Paratha.
Notes
Once you have added salt to the mix, don't leave it lying around. Salt draws out water and you may end up with a very runny mix of cabbage.
*If you make these with a cabbage variety like Savoy cabbage, as I have done in the pictures here, your grated cabbage is going to be quite dry. You will need to add a little water, along with quite a bit of extra besan, say 1 cup or more, to give it a 'binding' consistency. Adjust the amount of besan according to need. The resulting mix should be soft enough for you to be able to roll balls in your palm, that hold their shape together.
