Kashmira’s Potato Cheese Cutlets

Kashmira and myself are childhood friends. We met when we were both 15 – she had moved to NZ a year before me and I was the new girl in town. Like most of my really good friends in life, we didn’t hit it off right away. Rather, ours was a friendship that started as a slow simmer and gradually grew into something beautiful. 12 years later we now both live in different cities and even though we only meet once or twice a year she always knows the right things to say and our friendship just keeps growing.

We both became Bawi Brides one after the other with Kashmira getting married in February 2013. And, while we both left aapru NZ for our Bawa Grooms, she moved to Chennai – a completely new and unfamiliar city.

Similar to me, she too had to take a deep dive and make herself familiar with cooking Parsi food. These Potato Cheese Cutlets is an innovation she came up with in her first few months as a Bawi Bride and is something her Groom, M always requests for after a long flight.

My family is a big fan of all sorts of cutlets so she happily taught me this recipe when I visited her in Chennai earlier this year. And now I know why M likes them so much! Easy to make, these crisp cutlets give way to a gooey cheese centre and are a Cutlets’ lovers dream. Ingredients at the bottom as always.

To start, chop cheese into 1 cm cubes. You will need about 8 – 10 cubes, 1 for each cutlet

Now, boil about four potatoes either in the microwave or in the cooker and peel them

Roughly chop a handful of coriander – you don’t want to chop this too finely as Kashmira believes that the rough chopping enhances the coriander flavour

In a bowl, mix in the potatoes, coriander, chillies lemon juice, salt, pepper, Amchur and mint and mix everything well

Form small cups of the potato mixture in the palm of your hand and add a cheese cube in the centre. Close up the sides of the potato to form a nice round ball. Flatten this into the form of a round cutlet

Coat the cutlets in rawa while the oil for frying heats up on the stove

Shallow fry the cutlets until they are golden brown on each side. Place the cutlets on a kitchen towel to drain out the oil

Have them hot when they are just out of the frying pan. I like them best wrapped up in a warm roti or with a slice of bread for breakfast

 

To make about 8 – 10 small cutlets you will need:

4 small potatoes boiled
3 tbsp coriander
2 chillies chopped
Juice of 1/2 lemon
1 tsp Amchur (Dry mango powder)
1.5 tsp salt
Handful of mint
1 cup coarse rawa (semolina)
Oil for frying
Pepper to taste