Air fryer aloo tikki and aloo tikki chaat

The newest toy in my kitchen is an air fryer. I dithered over the purchase for a long time, and finally, last month, decided that I should it buy one. The husband and I have been experimenting with various dishes that we would normally use a lot of oil for,  and so far, all the experiments have been successful. Today's aloo tikki is made with minimal oil in the air fryer and it turned out nice and crisp on the outside and soft on the inside - just the way a good tikki should be.
Once the tikkis are made, they are topped with green chutney, spiced curd, sweet tamarind chutney, chopped onions and sev. This makes for a great starter or snack.

What you need:

For the tikki:
Potato - 4, boiled, peeled and mashed well
Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp
Red chilli powder - 12/ tsp
Amchur powder - 1/2 tsp
Chaat masala - 1/2 tsp
Garam masala - 1 tsp
Salt - to taste
Corn flour - 1.5 tbsp.

Mix all the ingredients to a smooth dough. Oil your hands well and roll out small golf ball sized pieces of dough and flatten them into tikkis. Brush some oil on both sides of each tikki.
Preheat air fryer to 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 5 minutes.
Place the tikkis in a single layer in the air fryer basket. Cook at 360 degrees for 12 minutes (6 minutes on each side).
If you do not have an air fryer, you can shallow fry the tikkis in a pan, adding about a teaspoon of oil around the tikkis and cooking them until they are well browned on both sides.

For the green chutney:
Cilantro - a small bunch
Green chilli - 2
Juice of half a lemon
Salt
Grind all the ingredients to a smooth paste along with a quarter cup of water.

For the spiced curd mixture:
Yogurt/curd - 1/2 cup
Sugar - 1/4 tsp
Salt
Cumin powder - 1/2 tsp
Whisk all the ingredients together till smooth.

To assemble:
Place two tikkis on a plate. Top with generous helpings of curd, green chutney, tamarind chutney, finely chopped onion and sev.
Serve immediately.

Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing this BM 

Minimal oil vegetable koftas

Fall is a beautiful season. The heat of summer is gone, but the bone chilling cold of winter is not yet here. The changing colors of leaves on the trees - the gorgeous shades of yellow, orange and flaming red - these are testimonials of nature's artistry. The leaves have now started falling, a signal that fall is coming to an end and colder weather is imminent.

 While deep fried snacks are enjoyed by us, I do try every now and then, to see if a recipe can be tweaked to use less oil. These koftas were made to be used in a curry that I wanted to serve with rotis. However, we soon found that these made for a great tea time snack. Luckily, I had enough of these on hand to make a curry after we were done with our snacking binge.

What you need:
Potato - 1 large or 2 medium sized, boiled, peeled and mashed
Carrot - 1, grated
Green beans - 10, chopped very fine
Spring onion - 2, chopped fine
Green chilli - 2, minced
Bread - 4 slices
Ginger - one inch piece, skinned and chopped fine
Salt
Dhania/corrainder powder - 1 tsp
Garam masala - 1 tsp
Red chilli powder - 1/2 tsp
Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp

Add the carrot, beans spring onion, ginger and chilli to the mashed potatoes. Mix in salt, garam masala, red chilli powder, dhania powder and turmeric powder. Dip the bread in water, quickly squeeze out all the water and add it to the vegetables. Knead well and then divide into small balls.
Heat a paniyaram pan/aebelskiver pan with about 1/4 tsp of oil in each depression. On medium flame, fry these koftas, turning over until they are well browned and crisp on all sides. Do not rush this process. It will take time, but the end result will be worth it.
The recipe for the curry I made with these koftas in it, will be up next.
This is my third post for BM #45 under the theme healthy tea time snacks.
Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing BM#45