Khasta Kachori – The popular street food – Now make it at your home.

KHASTA KACHORI

Khasta Kachori, the popular Indian street food, originated from Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan as they claim, is a puffed puri, stuffed with a delightful stuffing of moong dal or urad dal and other ingredients like besan and spices. It is also called Moong dal Kachori or dal kachori.

Available in varied forms, it can be prepared with a number of stuffing as you like to, like Aloo kachori, pyaz kachori and to the surprise of everybody mawa kachori as well, that is served sweet. Kachori forms an excellent base to chaat as well.

Today we are going to put our hands upon the recipe of Kachori which is a flaky version known as the Khasta Kachori, stuffed with moong dal and served along with khajur-imli ki chutney, green chutney and curd.

So let’s get on with it.

Ingredients for khasta kachori

For dough

2 cups of maida
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup ghee

For filling

1/2 cup yellow moong dal (soaked for at least 5-6 hours)
1 tsp jeera
1/2 tsp hing
1/2 tsp ginger paste

1/2 tsp green chilly paste

1 tsp chilli powder
1 tsp garam masala
1 tbsp amchur powder
2 tbsp besan
Oil for cooking
salt to taste

Oil for deep-frying the kachoris

For serving

2 cups beaten curd
1 tbsp Dhaniya-Pudina chutney
1 tbsp Khajur aur Imli ki Chutney
Chilli powder to sprinkle
Roasted jeera powder to sprinkle
Chopped coriander
Sev

Method 

For the dough

1. Combine all the ingredients in a container and knead into a firm dough, adding a little ghee at a time, you can use a little water if required.
2. Divide the dough into small balls of equal size and keep them covered under a wet muslin cloth.

For the filling

1. Heat the oil in a skillet and add the jeera to it, when the seeds crackle add hing and cook.
2. Now add the ginger and green chillies paste and cook.
3. Add the drained yellow moong dal to the skillet and cook. Make sure that the dal should be cooked till soft.
4. Add the besan and remaining masalas to the dal and cook for some more time.
5. Once the dal is soft to touch, yet crunchy to taste and the oil separates from the masala your filling is ready to stuff.
6. Allow the filling to cool before using.

For Khajur imli ki chutney

1. Wash 2 cups of dates and 1/4^th cup of tamarind and place it in a saucepan.
2. Add 1 cup of chopped jaggery, 1 tbsp of red chilly powder and 1 tsp of ginger to it.
3. Cover the ingredients with water so that it seals all the ingredients and bring it to a boil and then simmer.
4. Cook till the jaggery dissolves in the water and all the flavours assimilate.
5. Cool and puree the mixture and strain it through a muslin cloth.

For Dhaniya-Pudina chutney

1. Combine 2 cups of chopped mint, 1 cup of chopped coriander, 1 sliced large onion, 2-3 cloves of garlic, juice from 2 lemons, 1 tbsp sugar, 3-4 green chillies and salt as per taste, in a blender.
2. Blend the mixture into a smooth paste using as little water as you can.

How to proceed

1. Roll out the prepared balls of the dough into a circle just big enough to stuff the filling.
2. Place enough filling into the dough rolled above, taking care that it doesn’t break during frying.
3. Bring together the edges of the dough together to seal the dough, remove any excess dough as well.
4. Taking the stuffed dough between two palms of your hands, press it gently to stretch it a bit taking care that it should not spill out.
5. Gently press the centre of the kachori.
6. Heat oil in a kadhai and then reduce the heat to low and start frying all the kachoris on both sides. Remember frying should be done on low heat to make it crisp and to cook from inside as well.
7. Follow the same frying procedure for all the kachoris.

To serve

1. Place a kachori on the plate and make a hole in the center, using tip of your index finger and fill it with a tbsp of curd.
2. Top the curd with dash of dhaniya-pudina chutney and khajur-imli chutney.

3. Sprinkle on top the red chilli powder, jeera powder, coriander and sev. The khasta kachori now looks ornamental and tempting, serve it with love.