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Aloo Tokri Chaat/ Katori Chaat

This dish requires some time and effort to create but is a great crowd pleaser. It is something which pleases kids and grown ups equally. Once can prepare in advance and assemble a few minutes before serving. This is a brilliant recipe for holi, since it has so many colours from onions, tomatoes, capsicum and the chutneys. One can simply pop one basket in their mouth and continue playing with the colours on holi. Recipe Author: Madhushree
Prep Time 30 minutes
Cook Time 1 hour
Total Time 1 hour 30 minutes
Course Appetizers, Vegetarian
Cuisine Indian
Servings 12 baskets

Ingredients
  

For the potato baskets

  • 4 nos large sized potatoes
  • 2 1/2 tsp corn flour
  • Salt and Pepper for seasoning
  • oil for deep frying

Ingredients for the filling

  • 1 cup boiled chickpeas
  • 2 tbsp chopped onions
  • 2 tbsp chopped capsicum
  • 2 tbsp chopped tomatoes
  • 2 tbsp chopped coriander leaves
  • 1 no chopped green chilli
  • 3 tbsp sweet tamarind chutney for recipe, read above
  • 3 tbsp mint coriander chutney for recipe, read above
  • 1/2 tsp Roasted Jeera Powder alternately, you can use Bengali bhaja moshla
  • 1/2 tsp Red Chili Powder
  • 1/2 tsp aamchur powder
  • sea salt
  • sev for garnish

Instructions
 

To make the baskets

  • Peel the potatoes and keep them submerged in cold water while you grate them one by one. Grate three potatoes in the medium sized grater and one potato in the small grater. There will be a lot of water accumulating on the plate on which you are grating and it’s normal.
  • Once you completed grating all the potatoes, squeeze out the water entirely and keep the potatoes in a bowl. Add salt and pepper and the corn flour and mix them with your fingers.
  • At this point, there are two ways of making the baskets. One is using two strainers of different size and deep frying and the other way is to use a muffin tray and an oven. In case you do not have the oven, then you will have to do the deep frying method.
  • Method 1, using a muffin tray and OTG: Grease the muffin tray thoroughly and then divide the potato mixture equally in all the muffin cavities. Using your fingers, press the potatoes inside the cavities, making the shape of a bowl. Then bake it in a pre heated oven at 180 degree c for 35 to 40 minutes or until golden brown. When it is done, take the tray out and let it cool down a bit. Using a sharp knife, carefully remove the edges and take each bowl out.
  • The one thing I noticed while doing this is that the potatoes don’t get evenly cooked and some places remain soft and soggy. To take care of this problem, all you have to do is take a deep frying pan or a kadai and deep fry them in any regular cooking oil. It gives really crunchy baskets that you can store in an airtight container for a couple of days too.
  • Method 2, using tea strainers: You will need two sizes of tea strainers where one will go into the other one. Take the larger strainer and place a portion of the potatoes in the strainer. Using your fingers, press the potatoes against the wall of the strainer to create a shape of a bowl. Then use the other strainer to press the larger strainer. Using both the strainers, deep fry this in a kadai with regular cooking oil.
  • Once golden brown, take the strainers out, pull out the top smaller strainer and using a sharp knife, slowly release the basket from the big strainer and place on a kitchen towel.

Assembling the aloo tokri chaat

  • In a bowl, mix the chickpeas with the masalas, onions, capsicum, tomatoes, coriander leaves and green chilies. Do not add salt right away.
  • Then fill up each potato basket with the chick pea mix. Drizzle mint chutney, sweet tamarind chutney and yogurt (if you wish to) over the chaat baskets. Finally sprinkle some sea salt and sev for garnish.
  • Serve them immediately.
  • You can prepare the baskets in advance and keep the chaat mix ready for assembling whenever you want.