Taro-Rice Balls with yogurt dip

What do you do with leftovers? Left over curry, left over rotis, left over rice. I always try to do something. And I’m always looking for ideas. Some years ago, while I was at a Gujarati Restaurant in Hyderabad called Indian Harvest, my thali had a rather unusual fried snack. Small cutlets made with cooked rice and spices. I tried making the stuff at home and they turned out very nice.

Taro Root (Colocasia) is made in several ways in Tamil cuisine. I have talked about Seppankizhangu Karumadhu(Colocasia Curry) and the Seppankizhangu Mor Koottu earlier. The third way is to deep fry cooked taro root pieces smeared with spices. I had some left over curry and decided to convert it into the deep fried version on S’s birthday. But I also had leftover rice. And I didn’t know what to do with that. And what do I make to complete the meal?

It struck me just then. I thought, “Why not combine a Gujarati snack and a Tamil side dish into one?”

Ingredients:

1 cup Seppankizhangu Karumadhu
1 cup Cooked Rice
1 tsp Chilli Powder
½ tsp Turmeric Powder
¼ cup Flour
Salt to taste
Bread crumbs or Rava to coat
Oil for deep frying

If you don’t have the ready made curry, you can use cooked taro root and increase the salt, turmeric and chilli powder accordingly.

Mash the taro root curry along with the cooked rice. Add the salt, chilli powder and turmeric powder. Make small balls out of this mixture.

Mix the flour with a little water to make a thin paste.

Roll the balls in this paste and coat with breadcrumbs.

Heat the oil in a kadhai and deep fry these balls till they turn golden brown.

Drain on a slotted spoon over another small vessel so that this oil can be reused.

Yogurt dip:

1 cup Curd, beaten
½ Cucumber, grated
1 Onion, chopped finely
½ tsp Chilli Paste
½ tsp Ginger Paste
½ tsp Chilli Flakes
¼ tsp Oregano Flakes
Coriander leaves for garnishing
Salt to taste

Mix all the ingredients well. Garnish with coriander leaves. I got the idea of using oregano and chilli flakes from Nandita’s entry for WBB#12.

And since this becomes a complete meal in itself and is ready in way less than 30 minutes, this goes to Mallugirl’s Express Cooking challenge.

Rice being used here, I am also sending this entry to Jihva for ingredients started by Indira of Mahanandi and hosted by Sharmi of Neivedyam.