Mutter Kachori - Khandan ki Virasat!

Story: Anyone familiar with Bollywood movies can easily remember lines such as: "Main tumhe jaydaad se bedakhal kar doonga!" or "Kutte, Kamine, Main tera khoon pi jaunga!" or "Beti, ye lo kangan.. mere maa ke hai.. maine apane bahu ke liye sambhal ke rakhe the!".... I can go on forever..

For this post though - I want you to remember a Father-Son conversation from any Yash-Raj or K-JO style movie.. Of course the father & son belong to an extremely rich family called Singhania or Malhotra or Khanna or in this case Raichand (Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham)! .. One day I am going to make a movie that has characters from the Apte Khandan or Kulkarni, Aiyer or Swaminathan khandan.. ;-)

anyways.. back to the scene - The father played by Big B or Alok Nath or Anupam Kher... is handing over his company to the son on his birthday! - They stand in front of pictures of old men.. describing them one by one..The Father: "Beta, ye hai tumhare ParDada - Jaivardhan Raichand! Woh ye the, woh the.. yada yada yada"... "Aur ye hai tumhare Dadaji - Harshvardhan Raichand!.. yada yada yada.." "Raaj, Main aaj iin maha purushonki virasat tumhe de raha hun!".....

Today's recipe for Mutter Kachori is one such Virasat! Passed on from my hubby's par-nani to his nani to his mom to his sister and to me!!!!

Main ye mahan virasat aaj tum sab ko de rahi hun!

Source: Shank's par-nani to nani to MIL to me!

Time: Takes a long time! - preferably split over two days..

Ingredients: (for 40-50 kachoris)

• 1 pack of frozen peas (about 4 cups)
  
• 10-12 cloves of garlic
• 1 inch of ginger
• 4-5 green chillies (add more if you like it spicy)
• salt to taste
• 1 cup Shredded dry coconut
• 2 tsp Jeera/Cumin Seeds

For the coating:

• 4 cups of Maida (all purpose flour)
• 1/2 cup Oil
• 2 tbsp Lemon juice (for a crispy, multi-layer coating - idea from Madhu-ben)
• Salt - about 1/2 tsp
  

Recipe:

Roast coconut and cumin powder on a pan until the coconut gets a light brown color and you can smell the aroma of heated cumin seeds. Then grind this mixture to a dry masala and keep it aside.

Grind peas, ginger, garlic and green chilies into a non-uniform paste. Heat 1/2 cup oil in a large pan and add this mixture to the oil. Saute patiently on low-medium heat for 30 minutes or so. Towards the end - as the mixture becomes more and more dry, add the coconut-cumin masala and salt to taste. Mix well and saute for another 5 minutes.

Let this kachori mixture cool down to room temp.

In the mean time, you can mix the dough for the coating of the kachori.. Mix maida, Oil, lemon juice and salt. Add water as needed to get a soft dough. Keep the dough covered for a couple of hours.

Now the assembly - flatten the dough into small (3 inch diameter) circles. Add 2 tsp of kachori mixture and close the dough to form a stuffed ball. Lightly press this ball to flatten the kachori.

You can make these kachoris in advance and store them in the fridge for at least a couple of weeks. Defrost and deep fry till golden brown when you want to serve these.

Serve with Tamarind-date chutney and thin shev. Or you can serve it Indore's Baluchi kachori style, with finely cut onion, coriander and chilies and shev and chutney!