Matar Kachori

Matar Kachori

             Matar kachori recipe with step by step photos. Matar ki kachori is a flaky, crisp deep-fried pastry filled with spiced peas filling. In hindi matar means peas and Kachori is the fried & flaky pastry. These are like spiced empanadas. A vegan recipe.

             The matar kachori Filling can be varied from savory to sweet, from potato & peas to lentils and even onions. i shall be posting the other versions as well, my favorite being the khasta kachori where the filling is made from urad dal (black lentils). this recipe can also be called Khasta matar kachori as the outer pastry is flaky and crisp.  Peas kachori is a flaky & crisp Indian pastries stuffed with spiced & mashed peas. Vegan recipe.

Ingredients:

For Matar Kachori Pastry:

• 1 cup all purpose flour , you can also use whole wheat flour or both the flours in half-half ratio
• 1 tablespoon oil or ghee, i used sunflower oil
• ¼ cup warm water
• ¼ teaspoon baking powder
• ¼ teaspoon salt or add as required

For Matar Kachori Stuffing:

• 1 cup peas, fresh or frozen
• ¼ teaspoon red chili powder
• ¼ teaspoon turmeric powder
• ½ teaspoon coriander powder
• ½ teaspoon fennel powder
• ½ teaspoon chaat masala or add as per taste
• ½ teaspoon amchur powder (dry mango powder) or add as per taste
• ½ teaspoon green chili-ginger paste or crushed or minced green chili & ginger - use about ½ inch of ginger and ½ or 1 green chili and then crush them in a mortar & pestle
• ¼ teaspoon cumin seeds
• 1 tablespoon besan (gram flour or chickpea flour)
• 2 teaspoons oil or ghee (clarified butter)
• salt as required

For Frying:

• 2 to 3 cups oil

Instructions:

Making Pastry:

1. Sift the flour, salt and baking powder. Add oil and form a bread crumb like mixture.
2. Add water and form a tight dough. Cover with a damp cloth and keep aside.
3. making matar kachori stuffing
4. Boil or steam the peas. Mash them coarsely or semi-coarsely.
5. Heat oil and fry the cumin. Then add the crushed ginger and green chili.
6. Fry for a minute. Now add the dry spice powders and salt.
7. Stir and add the gram flour. Saute for 2-3 minutes.
8. Check the seasoning and add some more of the spice powders or salt, if required.
9. making matar kachori
10. Make equal sized 5-6 balls from the dough. Roll into 3-4 inch round on a dusted board.
11. Add some of the stuffing in the center. Brush some water on the edges.
12. Bring together all the edges and pinch them. Press the edges downwards below.
13. Roll into a 4-5 inches kachori. Prepare all matar kachoris like these. 
14. Keep them covered with a wet cloth.
15. frying matar kachori
16. Now heat oil in a kadai. 
17. At low to low-medium flame, fry the kachoris till they become golden, flaky and crisp.
18. Drain them on paper tissues to remove excess oil. 
19. Serve matar ki kachori hot with some coriander chutney or tamarind chutney.

Notes:

1. For making any flaky pastry, the proportion of flour to oil or ghee is important.
2. Also the amount of water required to knead is another important factor that determines the flakiness. Too much water will make the dough crisp but not flaky and too little can dry out the dough.
3. Keep the kachori dough covered with a moist cloth at all times.
4. Next comes the frying. Too hot oil won't allow the dough to get flaky resulting in a crisp exterior with uncooked interiors and filling. Too cold oil would end up the dough soaking a lot of oil and the result would be an oily kachori. So the oil has to be at a low to low-medium temperature but not cold. 
5. To check the temperature while frying, add a small piece of dough to the oil. If it comes slowly and steadily to the surface, then the matar ki kachori are ready to be fried.
6. If the dough comes quickly, the oil is too hot. So lower the flame. If it does not come on the surface, then the oil is cold. Increase the flame.
7. A point to be remembered is that when you add the matar ki kachori to the hot oil, the temperature of the oil does get lowered naturally, so accordingly increase a bit of the flame.
8. The spices in the kachori filling can be adjusted as per your preference.
9. If dry mango powder is not available, then add some lemon juice instead.
10. This peas kachori recipe can be doubled or tripled.

                                                                                                                                             Enjoyfood!