Camera: Sanjoy Deb

Editor: Kunal Mehra

FIT Bites, our series on healthier recipes, brings you home chef Jasleen Marwah's fresh take on Kashmiri Dum Aloo. It's a simpler, quicker, a more modern recipe that brings Kashmiri Dum Aloo flavours and turns it into sliders. The recipe is part of Twinkle Khanna's Tweak India book What's In Your Dabba?

In Jasleen's recipe Kashmiri flavours like asafoetida, mustard oil, fennel seeds and ginger powder come together in a phenomenal slider.

Aloo Sliders

Ingredients

• ½ kg potatoes
• 4 buns
• 4 tbsp mustard oil
• ¼ tsp asafoetida
• 1 bay leaf 2 cloves
• 3 tsp Kashmiri red chilli powder
• 2 tbsp curd ¼ tsp ginger powder
• 2 tsp fennel seed powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp cornflour
• 2 tbsp roasted semolina
• 2 cups water
• Regular cooking oil

Preparation

• Boil the potatoes and remove the skin once they cool down.
• Mash the potatoes well with your hand, a fork or a potato masher.
• Heat mustard oil in a pan. Bring it to smoking point and let it cool down.
• Turn the gas back on and put asafoetida in the oil.
• Add one bay leaf and two cloves.
• Turn off the gas to prevent the masalas from burning.
• Add Kashmiri red chilli powder. Turn on the gas after two minutes.
• Add a bit of water to keep the chilli powder from burning.
• Keep the gas on low flame and add the curd. Keep stirring the mixture till the oil separates from the curd. At this point the oil should be bright red.
• Once the oil separates, add a bit of water.
• Now add ginger powder and fennel seed powder.
• Add salt and mix well till there is no water left in the pan.
• Now add the mashed potatoes to this mixture and mix thoroughly.

Frying the Tikkis

• Meanwhile, make a slurry of cornflour. Spread out some semolina on a plate to coat the aloo tikkis with.
• Once the potato mixture has cooled down, start making tikkis.
• Heat the non-stick pan and put 2 tbsp of oil in it.
• Dip the tikki in the slurry, gently coat it with the semolina and slide it into the pan.
• Cook until both sides are nicely brown and crisp. The semolina will give a crispy crunch to the outside while the inside will remain soft like a dum aloo.
• To assemble the slider, heat the bun in the OTG. Take it out once it is crisp, place the tikki inside it, and then add the walnut chutney, fresh mint leaves and roughly chopped walnuts.

Making the Walnut Chutney

Ingredients

• ½ cup walnuts, soaked for two hours
• 1 cup curd
• ½ cup mint leaves 2 green chillies, deseeded
• Salt to taste

Preparation

• While the walnuts are soaking in water, hang the curd in a muslin cloth to drain out excess water.
• After two hours, blend the walnuts with the mint leaves and green chillies in a blender (you can keep the mixture slightly coarse).
• Then add the hung curd and salt.
• Add some chopped green chillies if you want a spicy punch in the chutney.