Rainy season has arrived and with that came our craving for hot-fried stuffs. Aaloor- Chop . It is found in many places, but mostly found in Kolkata and other districts of Bengal. Bengali have a tradition to have some muri (Rice Crispies) and fried chops or singaras/samosas/piyaji etc during evening time; but the tradition is slowly getting changed as there have been shift in food-choice of newer generations to other items like Chow-mein /momos/ pastas/pizzas etc. Still majority of people find ‘chops’ to be more relishing. We can easily find many small stalls of Chop makers, who during the evening time starts frying deep-fried chops/cutlets/fish-fries and people gather around to buy the hot and fresh chops to enjoy it with tea or muri. Thus I too tried my best to make Aaloor Chop. The recipe is mentioned below:
Ingredients
For Stuffing:
- Potatoes boiled and mashed – 2 large
- Ginger chopped -1 tablespoon
- Garlic chopped -1 tablespoon
- Green chili chopped( adjust to your taste) -1 tablespoon
- Roasted & ground cumin & coriander seed – 3 to 4 tablespoons
- Turmeric – 1 teaspoon
- Salt to taste
For the Batter:
- Besan – 1 cup
- Rice flour – 1/2 cup
- Baking powder -1/8 teaspoon
- Red chili powder -1/2 teaspoon
Vegetable or any white oil for deep frying
Serve : 4
Steps to Prepare
Making The Potato Stuffing :
- Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a pan and fry chopped ginger, garlic, green chilies for few seconds.
- Now add 1/2 teaspoon of turmeric and mix well.
- Now add the mashed potato, salt & 3-4 tablespoons roasted & ground cumin & coriander to the pan and make a mixture of potato.
- Now let the mixture cool.
Make The batter :
- In this mean time make a smooth but thick batter with besan, rice flour, 1/2 teaspoon turmeric, red chili, little salt, Baking powder with little water at a time.
Frying The Chops :
- When the potato mixture will cool down completely, make small balls from the mixture and flatten the balls pressing by palm on wax paper (Easy to remove the chopes from the wax paper/plastic sheet).
- Take each flatten potato mixture dip in batter and deep fry till nice golden brown.
Serving Tips
Serve hot along with puffed rice or muri.
Notes
- You can add chopped & roasted Peanuts to the mixture.
