Skip to main content

Tasty and Healthy - Beetroot Cutlets




Beetroot - I can't believe I managed to live a large portion of my life never having eaten it...thanks to my mother, I guess. She never made beetroot at home when I was growing up. Maybe coz dad hadn't liked it or perhaps  mum never knew how to cook it. The way that veggie leaked colour was not appealing to anyone in the family and to date I am sure my brothers too don't eat it at home. Fast forward to 2020 and after marriage to Mr. vegetarian, S, I have come to like this deep purple root vegetable. S had a way of making you try out things...he made it look so appealing on his plate or got it made often times by the Cook that ultimately one is forced to try out the same. 
Every Tuesday out came the beetroot cutlets to grace his plate after a day long fast. At first I ignored them...beetroot...yuck, beetroot cutlets... slightly better but why did they look so dreadful? 

And then when I got around to making them and found myself popping a piece in my mouth to test the texture and taste...I... became a convert. They were an absolute taste bomb. Yes...I can safely say that I have truly missed something so delicious and healthy the whole of my growing up years. At the risk of stealing his dinner from right under his nose, I would serve myself a large portion. I had thought these were beloved to my family only, including Ana kutti of course, but from almost all friends who have eaten this to my finicky mother - these have been happily consumed. 

The absolute brilliance of this dish is that it is simple, which defines the cooking at our place, and it is highly nutritious. We don't add bread crumbs for a crispy texture nor do we add corn flour or egg to bind the ingredients. This is 'S's take on beetroot cutlets...no frill, full of goodness with sucker punch spice. No deep frying, no unnecessary carbs...just pure vegetable delight. 

Don't go by their rudimentary looks, these cutlets will get you compliments galore. 




Beetroot cutlets

Ingredients:
Beetroot - 1 large, grated
Potato - 1 large, cooked and mashed
Green chillies - 3 (if you like it spicy)
Coriander leaves - a bunch 
Salt to taste
Oil for shallow frying

Method:

Cook the grated beetroot in a pan until soft and its natural water is used up. 
Once cooled, add it to the mashed potatoes, along with the chopped green chillies, coriander leaves and salt. 
Make them into round balls, the size of a small chappathi dough and shape them into patties. 
Once done, heat a flat pan and pour merely 2 tbsps of oil in it. 
Place the patties in it and shallow fry on low-medium flame till the cutlets start caramelizing and getting brown. Take care not to burn them, as leaving them for even a minute without supervision can make them burn. 
The cutlets might lose shape as there is no binding agent in it, except for potatoes, so do be gentle with them. Turn them over gently and after doing so a couple of turns remove from flame. Serve with coriander chutney or tomato sauce :) 💓😊
If you would like to make them before hand, you can shape them into cutlets and place in fridge for one day or keep the mixture WITHOUT shaping the cutlets in the freezer for 1 week. When you would like to serve, thaw the mixture, shape them into cutlets and fry as per the above recipe. 

Hope you like it and so do your loved ones.

#beetrootcutlets #beetroot #cutlets #easyrecipes #healthy #healthyrecipes #lessoil  #lowcarb

Comments

Priyanthi said…
I love beetroot cutlets! And my growing years were just the opposite of yours when it comes to beetroot - I used to love it growing up because it made everything pink. I used to pretend I was drinking blood after adding it to rasam :) Much before vampires became trendy!!
Jerry said…
That is very much the opposite of my childhood I agree. And I do remember seeing it in your lunch box in office :-D. Drinking blood....yikes...you do have the devil in you sometimes. 👹
prasanna said…
wonderful recipe Jeri. what started out as a snack, one fine day became dinner for the boys. thank u for the recipe and thank you for converting me from a " bloody beetroot hater " to a " ooh so tasty- beetroot" lover with your narrative about your journey towards loving beetroot
Jerry said…
Thaaank you Kousi. So happy to know the recipe made you a convert. Such lovely words on top. Made my day :-D
Sarah said…
I should remind myself not to look at your food posts around my mealtime; makes me so hungry and I want some now! Beetroot was common in my house and yes the fun of it was how pink everything became! My mom adds beetroot juice to puris and my daughter calls it the 'pink puris' Enjoyed reading your post and now have to add beetroot to my next shopping list! got to try this recipe.
Sarah
Jerry said…
:-D A good food post has to make you hungry! It's awesome putting them in pooris...to birds with a single stone situation. Do try and let me know sweetie.

Popular posts from this blog

Nature's Green Thumb - Kotagiri

So true When Sharan warned us that we had a ten minute walk from the road to reach his guest house in Hadathorai, Kotagiri, I was quite sure that he was exaggerating. The pictures he had posted did not evoke much confidence in me. They were predominantly of his wild garden and of the beautiful mountains around, but hardly of any of the bedrooms or bathrooms in the homestay. A ten minute walk to his guest house? Who was he kidding? Either this place was going to be a hole in the wall, I thought or it was going to be one hell of an experience. At the back of my mind though, I had some confidence in S’s choice of this place. He had a knack of picking up homestays and guest houses that were quaint/comfortable/superb and available for a song. This, he had picked up from Airbnb A magic of colours - Kotagiri So when we drove from Chennai, via Avinashi and picked up 50-something Sukumar, the guy taking care of the place, from the Kotagiri bus stand, I got th...

Nagarhole National Park

I know my first post of the new year has been 24 days into the month, but I am just back from one of my first trips (of hopefully many) in 2019. A dear friend had got us booked in a forest guest house at Nagarhole National Park or Rajiv Gandhi Tiger Reserve and we friends just grabbed the opportunity without a moment's thought. The road leading from Hunsur through the forest I love going to such off beat places as the experiences are different and the crowd is less. My Kotagiri blog post is one of the most read posts here, and Nagarhole is as wild and beautiful perhaps even more than Kotagiri. We are talking about a real forest here. It is the real deal. And like all good things, it is kind of hard to experience. The dark, misty forest Nagarhole National Park is home to one of the most vulnerable species of animals in the world right now - the magnificent Tiger. Statistics show that there are very few tigers in the world. You may be sure that a good number of those...

What are we really Celebrating?

One minute into episode 1 of the bold and brash Four More Shots Please that is right now streaming on Amazon Prime, and I was hooked. The reason: an extremely sexy Milind Soman features in one of the protagonist's dream. Seriously, it has been ages since I have seen a role do justice to his innate sexiness. He appears in pristine white briefs, looking absolutely delicious, rocking a salt and pepper look. Oh...keep still my heart. I am instantly hooked. Hot Milind Soman in Four More Shots Please But just like how he disappears after the very promising scene where he ravishes Damini right on top of her office conference room table, the series nose dives as it wants to do so many things in 10 episodes, very much like the four hip heroines. What a pity that the makers of the show didn't think of milking workaholic Damini and sexy stranger/boss/ board of director angle (which was done pretty well in Rani Mukherjee's Aiyyaa) during the course of the series. He is none of ...