Both of us share a love for spicy foods, and one of our favorite cuisines is Indian food. Unfortunately, we don’t have a ton of great Indian restaurants near us, so we have tried our hand at some Indian recipes at home. One of our favorites snacks are these Aloo Tikki, or spicy fried potato patties. We often get them for an appetizer at Indian restaurants. We opted to pan fry these instead of deep frying to cut down a bit on the calories, and served them with a simple herbed chutney to cut through the spiciness. It’s the perfect side dish to any protein – we like to make them with Tandoori grilled chicken or shrimp!
Indian food can be a little intimidating at first. There are lot of spices and ingredients that can often be hard to find without a speciality grocery store. We opted to try to keep the ingredients pretty simple and felt the taste was fairly similar, although not perfectly authentic. The only specialty ingredient we used to make Aloo Tikki is Garam Masala – this a very common Indian spice mix that should be fairly easy to find in the spice section at your supermarket. We can find it easily in Dallas at both Central Market and Whole Foods. It’s a combination of coriander, cinnamon, cumin, black pepper, nutmeg, and cardamom that adds a ton of flavor to Indian recipes. There are some easy recipes online, if you are unable to find this specific spice mixture, you can create your own mix.
The process to making this dish is fairly straightforward. Boil the potatoes and cook the onions, peppers, and garlic. Mash the potatoes (I recommend using a potato masher like this one), add spices, cooked onions, peppers, and garlic, peas, ginger, and fresh cilantro. Form into patties, coat in breadcrumbs and pan fry. The chutney comes together in minutes with a food processor! No need to pre-chop any of the ingredients. We are still loving this mini food processor from Cuisinart for small jobs like this.
Let us know if you’ve tried out Indian recipes at home, and if so, what your favorites are! Or let us know which ones you’d like to see posted on the blog!
Aloo Tikki with Mint Chutney
Ingredients
Mint Chutney
- 1/2 Cup Fresh Mint
- 1/2 Cup Fresh Cilantro
- 1 Clove garlic
- 1/2 lemon Juiced
- 1 Teaspoon Ginger Grated
- 1.5 Tablespoons greek yogurt
- 1/4 Teaspoon Kosher salt
- 1/4 Teaspoon Black Pepper
- 1/4 Teaspoon cayenne
Aloo Tikki
- 3-4 Medium Red Potatoes Peeled and Quartered
- 1 Medium onion Diced
- 3 Jalapenos Diced
- 2 Cloves garlic Minced
- 1 Teaspoon Ginger Grated
- 2 Tablespoons cilantro Chopped
- 1/2 Cup Green Peas
- 1.25 Teaspoons Garam Masala
- 1/4 Teaspoon cayenne
- 1.5 Teaspoons Kosher salt
- 1/4 Teaspoon Black Pepper
- 1/2 Cup Unseasoned Bread Crumbs
- 1/4 Cup olive oil
Instructions
Mint Chutney
- Add all of the ingredients for the chutney into a food processor and pulse until smooth.
- Add salt and pepper to taste. Set aside.
Aloo Tikki
- Bring a large pot of water to boil and season generously with salt.
- Add chopped potatoes and boil for about 20 minutes or until tender. Drain and set aside in a large mixing bowl.
- While the potatoes are cooking, add diced onion, garlic, and jalapeno into a saucepan with olive oil over medium heat and cook about 5 minutes or until translucent. Set aside.
- Add salt, pepper, cayenne, and garam masala to the boiled potatoes.
- Mash well with potato masher or fork.
- Next, add in chopped cilantro, peas, ginger, cooked onions, garlic, and jalapenos. Stir well with a wooden spoon.
- Season with salt and pepper as needed.
- Using your hands, form the potato mixture into 3 inch wide patties.
- Spread breadcrumbs out onto a large plate. Coat each patty well with the breadcrumbs.
- Heat olive oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat.
- Add patties in gently and cook for about 5 minutes on each side or until golden brown.
- Serve with chutney.