Soya and Vegetable Cutlets

Again this one needs a bit of preparation, nothing heavy duty though. If you have worked with Soya chunks before, you know that they need to be hydrated. I normally boil it in water for 5 minutes and let it soak till the water cools down. Then drain the excess. Do you use another method?
Mince the soya in a food processor till you have grainy soya that looks like minced meat.

I used potato, carrot and peas alongwith the soya. You can throw in other vegetables you like. Make sure to cook them well and mash it to fine consistency with no chunks. In a shallow pan, fry finely chopped onions, ginger, garlic, green chillies and curry leaves.

When the onion starts to brown, add the spice powders – pepper, red chili, turmeric and garam masala, mix well, fry for a minute. Add the minced soya and the mashed vegetables, alongwith the coriander and mint leaves to the pan, salt and mix well. Let the mixture cool down completely before proceeding with the next step.

Take small portions of the soya mixture and shape them into flat ovals or rounds. Cutlets should not be too small.

For binding, I used cornflour instead of egg to keep this completely vegetarian. Mix the cornflour in around 1/4 to 1/2 cup water. Dip the cutlets in the cornflour batter, roll in breadcrumbs and deep fry till brown. If you do not want to deep fry, then you can opt to shallow fry this in a nonstick pan with little oil or bake them. Fry till both sides turn brown.