Soy Cutlets...

Last week, I opened my pantry and it seemed to have a taken a life of its own, growing and reproducing more than I actually stored in it. For every box that I take out, two more fall out from behind it. However organized the pantry is, after the kids ransack through it and I shove stuff into it, during instant clean ups, it gets messy soon enough.
Every 2-3 months, I have to reorganize and take stock of the endless grocery outings. I am sure all of you have had this experience at least once. So I set out to clean it and guess what I found? Amongst all the spice jars and sauces and powders, there was a packet of Nutrela Soy Chunks that I had bought in the hope and dream of feeding my family healthy food. Once I followed a Sanjeev Kapoor recipe of soaking the soy in milk and making a subji with it, but that turned out to be too sweet. Unfortunately, soy was a failure as a stir fry, as a subji, as a curry and now it lay neglected and unwanted in the corner.

Soy is the poor man's meat..it looks like meat( vegetarians will disagree!!)though it doesn't taste anywhere near meat!!So I minced it and treated it exactly the way I cook with minced meat..sauteed with onions and spices and then mixed with potatoes..viola.. there you have it..soy cutlets...other than the slight taste of soy, the cutlet sensation took over and the chewy granules makes it taste just like meat cutlets.

Vegetarians may wonder why the emphasis on meat cutlets, given that they may like the taste of soy as is, but meat lovers will understand the point. If I made it into a tikki, it just tastes weird and chewy. Getting a meat loving household to try anything remotely soy and healthy is a challenge and when they like it, it is worth blogging. Try it and let me know if it passed in your house or not.

You will need: To make 10-12 cutlets

Nutrela Soy chunks- 1 cup
White Potato-3 medium sized
Onions- 2 medium sized ones
Green chilies- 8
Roasted Coriander Powder- 1 tsp
Turmeric- A pinch
Ginger-garlic paste-1 1/2 tsp
Black pepper- 2 tsp
Biryani Masala/Garam masala- ½ tsp (optional)
Lemon juice- 2 tsp.
Salt to taste
Coriander leaves- 1 cup chopped finely
Canola Oil- ½ cup
Egg –1
Bread crumbs- 1 cup
Preparation:
1. Soak the soy chunks in warm water for half hour and then squeeze out every ounce of water from it. Mince the soy chunks in a mixer/food processor without water.
Chop the onions, garlic and chilies finely and put in a shallow pan, with 1 or 2 tbsp oil. Let it saute for 5 minutes and then add the minced granules, turmeric,and coriander powder. Keep stirring to prevent any particles from sticking to the pan. 2. After 10 minutes, take the mixture off the flame and add the lemon juice, garam masala and pepper.
3. Meanwhile, wash each of the potatoes, wipe them dry and cover with plastic wrap. Place them in the microwave and adjust the setting for the baked potatoes. All the potatoes can be cooked at the same time. Alternatively, the washed potatoes can be pressure cooked with ½ cup water for a single whistle.
4. Peel the potatoes and mash them with your hands/potato masher or the back of a spoon. There should be no lumps.
5. Add the soy mixture to the potato, and add the chopped coriander leaves and salt. Mix and taste and add more salt or lemon juice if needed.
6. Make lemon sized balls of the mixture and shape it into an oval or round shape.
Beat the egg (Use just the egg whites) with a pinch of salt. Keep a plate with bread crumbs also ready.
7. Dip each oval ball into the egg and then into the bread crumbs. Give it a final shaping.
8. Heat little oil (should cover the cutlets only half way) in a pan and shallow fry the cutlets till brown on either side. Serve with ketchup/chutney.