CURRY AND SPICE: PAN COOKED ALOO BEET GAJOR ER FRITTER

ABOUT LATKE & HANUKKAH!

Until last week, I did not know what LATKE is, neither about the festival of Hanukkah. It was in one of the food pages I follow that I learnt about both. The said page can be either Food Network or Tastemade or Tiffin Box; these pages I follow for their international recipes. I never knew Hanukkah is the Jewish festival of light; that Latke is their must do in this festival. I loved the simplicity of this FOOD ITEM. Oh! My! using only shredded POTATO, ONION & EGG; such yum SNACKS, APPETISER, STARTER can be made? I wondered! I felt, the idea is a keep and I will prepare my version of it very soon. And soon did I prepare a VEGAN, GLUTEN-FREE STARTER, APPETISER, FRITTER, this PAN COOKED ALOO BEET GAJOR ER FRITTER; that was last Saturday evening. How delighted I was to have them while watching a movie on the home screen. The last two days we had watched a couple of movies, cannot recall what we were watching the day before. This is what has happened to me; I was always unmindful; I am becoming more of a forgetful.

MORE ABOUT THE VEGAN, GLUTEN-FREE POTATO BEETROOT CARROT FRITTERS!

I knew I will not exactly prepare a latke, I wanted to derive the idea from it and create something of my own. Each time, I wish to rejoice over creating something, I am stopped! Today morning, I see the food page "Food Network" had shared a post titled "Latke with Root Vegetables", a day before. Trust me, I read their recipe just today, we indeed had me made potato, beetroot, carrot / aloo, beet, gajorer fritter, bora last Saturday night for dinner.

The plan was on since last week when I came across the word Latke for the first time in my life. It was instantly decided that I will tweak it a bit using carrot and beet. Anyway, reading Food Network's recipe, I see they have used eggs & flour in it. So, for a vegan & gluten-free version, you will come to my space; my blog. To make them not only vegetarian but also vegan & gluten-free, I had to struggle a bit. There had to be something to bind it and I was not wanting to use refined flour; I also knew store bought rice flour may not work in this case. I used corn flour instead; to assist it, what I had to do is not to squeeze the moisture, so that the marinade mixed together with the cornflour would help me bind them into some sort of a shape. Thereafter, frying them to perfection was no big deal. May I tell you, we needed only about 3 to 4 tablespoon of oil doing about 11-12 of those fritters. With a couple of conditions imposed; they were less crisp, their taste was unbeatable.

LATKE OR FRIES & FRITTERS; IT IS OUR CHILDHOOD TO TEENHOOD TO ADULTHOOD'S THURSDAY SHREDDED POTATO FRITTERS!

If on one Thursday, it was postor bora / poppyseed fritters & sheddo aloor bora / boiled potato fritters; then the next would be pumpkin flower fritters / kumro phool er bora & shredded potato fritters / jhiri jhiri korey kata aloor bora. Thursdays were all vegetarian and we needed fries & fritters as a substitute for fish & meat. In those days, none in the family did really like eggs, we were fish mongers in the parental home. Looking at the Latke pictures for the first time, the first thing that came to my mind is similar to what our mother used to fry on Thursdays in the 80's and 90's. She did not even require creams & eggs to bind; only with a bit of rice flour & turmeric she managed them and they were super crisp. I had that on my mind while doing this fritter.

WHAT IS OUR EVERY DAY FOOD LIKE? IT IS DEFINITELY SIMPLE INDIAN FOOD & NOT PAN COOKED ALOO BEET GAJOR ER FRITTER!

We eat what an average Indian eat; okay, being a Bengali, we cannot eat an all VEGETARIAN MEAL day in and day out. We must have our share of fish & meat regular. However, our tiffin or snacks or lunch boxes sent to office or what I eat for lunch is what you see below. This was my lunch today.

I get those small sized bananas for the God family and myself. This is the variety we use for offering made to God. The rest are yogurt with cauliflower and spring onions-potato fry. Its raining and I am feeling cold, the poor-old self. I just want to finish off my post and have some hot tea accompanied with a microwave made cake and muri-chanachur makha. Life at home is never boring to me, nor to my brother, son, man. We love being indoors. Anyway, few other fries & fritters recipes from this blog are as follows; click on the titles :

OVEN E NARKOL KISHMISH DIYE PAURUTI ALOOR BORA

MINCED CHICKEN FRITTERS

OVEN COOKED VERMICELLI CUTLET

BATTER FRIED EGGPLANT

MOONG BEAN-COCONUT CAKE & BENGALI FISH FRY

BATTER FRIED ANCHIOVY

SWEET POTATO & PEANUT SNACKER

INGREDIENTS :

POTATO : 2 BIG SIZED

BEETROOT : 1 STANDARD SIZED

CARROT : 2 STANDARD SIZED

ONION : 1 BIG SIZED

GREEN CHILLI : 2-3

CORN FLOUR : 1 SMALL TEA CUP SIZED

CRUSHED BLACK PEPPER : 1/2 TSP

TURMERIC POWDER : 1/4 TSP

SALT : AS REQUIRED

OIL : 3-4 TBSP

PROCEDURE :

Cristine peeled, washed and shredded the potato, beetroot and carrots. She also peeled, washed and minced the onion; washed & chopped the green chillies too. We had taken all of them together in a bowl.

I had marinated them with some salt for about 15-20 minutes. We did not squeeze off the moisture off them as we were not using refined flour or egg to bind them.

We added the corn flour & crushed black pepper at this point and folded in well.

We kept it for rest for about 5 minutes. We had heated the oil in a pan, scooped and added portions of the mixture to the pan and pressed a bit with a ladle.