Cutlet No 6 Rice Cutlets

Leftovers are the nemesis of any housekeeper. I am sure you will all agree. One way to get rid of all leftovers is to have a leftovers night like in “The Incredibles”, second is to get it out the very next day, like hubby’s  Maushi does and it’s compulsory that all eat it, easy if you have only leftovers in the fridge. But for me who has tomorrow’s veggie, chopped onions, cooked dal to name a few, all of which I store in the container that I have cooked because there will be too many vessels to wash. Leftovers are lost!!

So when I happen to want some space in the fridge I check leftovers. Which happens about once in 2-3 days and things get re-circulated.

I love to make cutlets and generally I make use of these leftovers to make them. I have no less than 5 cutlets here 

1.    Frankies

2.    Suran Gaddi/Suran/ Elephant's Foot Cutlets

3.    Noodle Cutlet

4.    Soya Spinach Cutlets

5.    Cheese Stuffed Rajma Cutlets

Since I love to make them so much I thought, what is the history of these succulent balls that can be eaten plain as well as stuffed in bread? What enterprising soul put in efforts to get start making them?

Was it something made out of necessity for the hard riding soldiers a quick meal on the horseback, can you imagine the Vikings riding out to a rendezvous night & day?

You have them in so many forms, burgers, frankies, even our humble vada pav is an example of these amazing invention.

So these questions naturally have you turning to Wikipedia. Here is what I read about them. 

This is the Dictionary meaning of cutlet is

 cut·let pronounced as [kuht-lit]   is a noun and is defined as

1. a slice of meat, especially of veal, for broiling or frying.

2. a flat croquette of minced chicken, lobster, or the like.

Wikipedia says

Cutlet (derived from French côtelette, côte ("rib")) refers to:

1. a thin slice of meat from the leg or ribs of veal, pork, or mutton (also known in various languages as a cotoletta or Kotelett)

2. a fried breaded cutlet

3. a croquette made of minced meat

4. a kind of fish fillet

5. various preparations using fried cutlets or croquettes

There are cutlets in various forms such as in

•  American cuisine where chicken is used and the cutlet is usually run through flour, egg and bread crumbs then fried in a pan with some oil. The credited creator of the modern American chicken cutlet is thought to be Michael Santaniello.
•  Cutlets are also available In British Cuisine where it is called a chop.
•   Indian cuisine famous being Aloo Tikki.
•   Italian cuisine the most famous is the Milanese cutlet (cotoletta alla milanese); a veal cutlet covered in bread crumbs and fried in butter or the Wienerschnitzel. 
• The Japanese pronounce cutlet as   katsuretsu or shorter katsu is breaded cutlet. Dishes with katsu include tonkatsu and katsudon. These are few of the many variations I read.

The Wise Geek says 

One of the classic preparations for cutlets involves dredging them in flour, following with beaten eggs and bread crumbs. The breaded cutlets are fried and served hot with lemon or other sauces, along with side dishes such as vegetables or mashed potatoes. Cutlets may also be simmered in curries, broiled, roasted, baked, or simply sautéed plain. Generally, the shorter the cooking process, the better the cutlet will be.

Sounds like a kofta does it not?

Carrot Rice ~A Blog Hop

For Blog Hop this time Radhika has paired me with Santosh Bangar of Santosh’s Kitchen. I was amazed at her versatile creativity. Simple to the exotic dishes with a wide range of ingredients that is Santosh’s Kitchen!

I wanted to try out brinjals or eggplant especially the fusion variety. I even brought the ingredients needed but I find myself short of time. I was supposed to make it on Sunday but then I had forgotten that we were supposed to have a party for our friends. So my Sunday was spent in a shack at the Banastri River. What a lovely time we had!!

So the lovely brinjals were back in the fridge!! 

Oats Bisi Baali Huli Anna

Oats the wonder grain is a new addition to our diet. The most easily available (read I have not checked) form being the rolled oats that I try making on a regular basis. The girls refuse to do anything with it claiming all sorts of reasons from downright stinks to tastes yucky. We have heard them all.

So how do I get them in them? Well I sneak them in like today’s Sunday special being Bisi Baali Huli Anna. Their favourite!!

I generally do not make the masala that Amma used to make for making this rice so special.  I promise I will post the authentic recipe soon. In fact I am surprised that I have not posted the recipe as yet.   No wonder so many of you have commented that I have Goan style cooking featured in my space. Maybe because cooking Karnataka style food is comfort cooking.

Stir Fry Chapati

It is heartening to hear from you guys! Believe me the last few months I have really missed blogging and interacting with you all. Even my organising, cooking and presentation suffered everyday!

Bah am I getting sentimental? Not at all like me, so enough of sentimental rambling now getting down to the post that I have been planning for a long, very long time.

We have chapatti morning and evening, you can safely say that it is our staple food. So they are always some lying in the casserole, yes leftover. I generally convert them to phodni chi poli but the girls find ways to avoid eating it.

The other day I read in Tarla Dalal's newsletter about Chapati Masala Noodles I decided to try it and forgot in my morning rush what I had read. The only thing that I remembered was that the chapatti was cut in long strips, which I got hubby dear to make. The rest was a Chinese stir fry which the girls, their grand father and father loved.

I think one day I will make it the way it was intended!! Right now things are okay & I would rather not rock the boat!

Reposting Franky or Wraps

The basic wrap(no salads at all)

Since we were supposed to visit friends and I had to cook only for my FIL.

 I cannot cook for one person and hence the Peas Palak that I had made was too much for him and for the rest of us to finish in the evening. As I did not want to throw it out I made "Franky"(basically I am reposting Franky)  as we called it in the past. Now I would prefer to call it "Wrap" but the name "Franky" is stuck with the kids and hence we and  so franky it is!

You can use the Hara Bhara Kabab Recipe and make the same cutlets. Only today ground the peas palak with green chillies and added 1 1/2  cup of rolled oats to the dough to make the dough into a smooth and not too free flowing. The cutlets I made are longish and I rolled them in oats. The shallow cutlets are wrapped in chappati smeared with cheese spread and tomato sauce. 

 The only photographs I had taken were when Akanksha, my younger daughter was eating there are no salads in it. You can add tomatoes, onions and capsicum. They taste better!!

Longish cutlets ready for the fry pan

My younger daughter's wrap getting ready(no salad lots of ketchup)

P.S. You can also use green chutney and tamarind chutney as a spread.

Garlic chutney and dates chutney.
I am sending this entry to Priya's Priyas's Easy N Tasty Recipes  Cooking With Whole Foods - Oats and Kiran of Sumudra's Cooking with Whole Foods(CWF)

I am sending this entry to http://torviewtoronto.blogspot.com/

Egg Biryani

The other day I had to satisfy different tastes and requests. My 14 year old wanted anything different and tasty not the usual dal rice stuff. My hubby dear was okay with anything.

I also had rice cooked for lunch to contend with. Since I was unwilling to stick it in the fridge for tomorrow I decided to make biryani. The cooking of this biryani was up the right up the Mad Scientist’s Kitchen street, but very tasty.

For 3 cups of cooked rice

3 med. Onions

4 cloves garlic

½ in. Ginger

1 green chilli

A handful of coriander

2 med. Tomatoes pureed

2 cups vegetable like cauliflower, carrots, and peas cubed

4 Boiled eggs, cut into halves or quarters

5 corns pepper

1 in. Stick of cinnamon

3-4 cloves

1 tsp jeera

1 tblspn oil

2 tblspn curds

½ tsp haldi

Salt to taste

1. To put the whole thing together grind onion, garlic, ginger, green chilli and coriander to a fine paste in the chutney pot of your mixer.
2. Heat oil add the jeera when it becomes blackish add pepper, cinnamon, cloves. Be careful as the whole thing is going to splutter quite viciously.
3. Add the ground onion paste and fry on low flame till it well done.
4. Add the tomato puree, haldi and fry till the oil come out. (This happens when the mixture dries up and you will see small droplets of oil bubbling around). Beat the curds and add to the tomato onion gravy.
5. Add the vegetables, a little salt and mix well.
6. When the vegetable change colour add rice with the salt mixed into it. Stir well. It’s a good idea to use a fork to stir at this point as the rice grain do not break.
7. Add the boiled eggs and stir lightly.
8. Cover and switch off the gas.
9. Let it rest with the lid on for 5-10 minutes.
10. Serve with dahi boondi or raita.

Frankies

With my kids Frankies are hot favourite. I hit on them in one of my inspirational moments (which these days are very few and far). You see I was left with one katori of cauliflower vegetable, one of cabbage, some old carrots, peas that had sprouted. So I hit on this idea of blending all the stuff so that it cannot be identified. You could also make them with fresh vegetables.

Ingredients:

For the cutlets:

3 cup left over vegetables, like cauliflower, carrots, cabbage, spinach, peas.
3 medium sized potatoes (boiled),
5-6 slices of bread
Idli rava for coating
Oil for frying

For the wraps:
Chapattis
Cheese spread
Tomato sauce
Some onions chopped lengthwise (optional)
Tomatoes cut lengthwise (optional)
Coriander chopped fine
Toothpicks

Method:

Boil the vegetables with a little salt, say ½ cup water, till tender and mash.
Grate the boiled potatoes and mash.
Soak the bread slices in water and squeeze them out. (You can use the water left over after boiling the vegetables).
Mix all the three in a bowl like soft dough.
Make small longish rolls as thick as two fingers and about as long.
Dip in the idli rava and shallow fry in oil till well done.


To put together

1. Spread cheese spread on the chapatti, some tomato sauce, and sprinkle coriander leaves.
2. Place the cutlet on the chapatti such that it is about an inch out of the chapatti.
3. Put a few of the onion slices, tomato slices.
4. Wrap the chapatti pin it with a toothpick and serve.