Vegetable Kofta Kebabs
Sabji ke Kofte or Kabab
Reeta Kumar
Vegetable Koftas can be made using various seasonal vegetables. They can be served as a starter or as vegetable burgers, placed between two bread buns or added to a Basic Curry Sauce, or any sauce of your choice, and served as kofta curry. This recipe makes approximately 15-16. If you keep the size smaller, for starters, numbers will be more. They are quite easy to make.
Ingredients
For Koftas:
750 gm. of any of these: Indian gourd (lauki/dudhi/bottle gourd/Indian sweet gourd), cabbage, cauliflower, courgettes (tori/Turai), carrots.
150-200 gm. or 1 large onion, peeled (optional)
1 inch piece ginger, peeled
3-6 green chillies (according to taste and variety of chilli used)
2 cloves of garlic, peeled (optional)
A 1-2 tbsp. fresh green coriander leaves
2 heaped tbsp. besan or gram flour. More, if needed. See instructions.
2 tsp. Garam Masala
1/4 -1/2 tsp. chilli powder
Salt to taste
For deep frying
Oil
Instructions
Grate or grind coarsely your chosen vegetable, onion, ginger, garlic, green chillies and coriander, either on a grater or by hand or in a food processor. If using vegetables like sweet gourd or courgettes, grate them alone first, and squeeze the water out, because they have too much water. Now grate/chop finely, onion, ginger, garlic, green chillies and coriander leaves and add to your main vegetable. Just before you are ready to fry, squeeze tightly to remove as much water as you can.
Mix with all other kofta ingredients. If this mixture looks too runny to make balls, add a little more gram flour or besan. It should be stiff enough to make into soft balls. Do not leave it lying around after adding salt, because it will draw out more water from the vegetables, making it too runny to handle. If you then have to add too much besan/gram flour to counter it, the koftas will become hard.
Divide this mix into 15-16 portions. The size is your choice.
Roll each portion between greased or wetted palms, into balls. You can make them into burger or sausage shapes.
Heat oil in a wok or karahi. Gently drop the balls into oil and cook on all sides, turning gently. They should be crisp and golden brown. Serve hot with Green Mango Chutney.
If made in advance and chilled or frozen, defrost fully. Then place on a lined baking tray and reheat in a medium hot oven, at 170? C.
These koftas cane be made into a curry, simply add to a Basic Curry Sauce, bring to boil and simmer for 1 minute, no longer. Otherwise they will break. Serve with a garnish of chopped coriander leaves and serve with Chapatties or
