Baked pea kachori with coriander chutney
Baked pea kachori with coriander chutney
Today, I’m saying ‘hello’ to the eagerly awaited weekend with a bowl of delicious Indian snacks – kachori filled with spicy pea filling and served with a cooling coriander and coconut chutney. Yum!
They will make a delicious starter to a curry night if you are planning on doing any entertaining this weekend.
Like most Indian snacks, traditional kachori get a deep-frying treatment, but these beauties have been baked in the oven with excellent results. I was also planning to make some baked samosas, but Duncan is adamant that samosas need to be fried – we shall see, he hasn’t won me over yet.
Kachori continue my theme of filled dough dishes, the concept that’s known and loved in most cuisines around the world. So far I have done a few types of Polish pierogi, summer and spring rolls, potstickers, gözleme and kachori balls and I’m already scheming another dish that will happily sit in this category. Watch this space!
DOUGH
- 150 g of all purpose flour, sifted
- ¼ tsp salt
- 1 tbsp / 15 ml of oil (I used olive oil)
- about 75 ml / 5 tbsp of boiling water
FILLING
- 300 g frozen peas, defrosted
- 2 tsp of grated ginger
- 2 garlic cloves, chopped finely
- ½ tsp black mustard seeds
- ½ tsp garam masala
- ½ tsp hot chilli powder
- ½ tsp cinnamon powder
- ½ tsp cumin powder
- ¼ tsp turmeric powder
- ¾ tsp salt
- 1 tbsp oil, for sauteéing
- about 1-2 tbsp / 15-30 ml of lemon juice
CHUTNEY
- 1 cup of fresh coriander
- about ½ cup / 120 ml full fat coconut milk
- lime juice to taste (I used ½ lime)
- 2 tsp grated ginger
- ½ tsp cumin
- ½ tsp garam masala
- ¼ tsp hot chilli powder
- ½ tsp salt
- In a large bowl, mix flour and salt. Add oil and rub it into the flour with your hands. Now add 60 ml of hot water and start bringing the dough together. If it is too dry add another 1-2 tablespoons but do it gradually so that the dough doesn’t end up too wet. Knead for 5 minutes. Brush the surface of the dough with a tiny bit of oil and cover with a damp tea towel to prevent drying up.
- Whiz defrosted peas in a food processor.
- Warm up a tablespoon of oil (on a medium heat) in a pan. Add mustard seeds and wait until they start popping. Add ginger and garlic and stir-fry them briefly until garlic has softened. Now add in all the spices, peas and salt. Stir-fry for a few minutes but do not let the mixture dry up completely. Let the filling cool down.
- Pinch a small amount of the dough and roll it into an 8 cm / 3 ” circle. Place a heaped teaspoon of dough in the middle and gather the dough around the filling so it looks like a little money bag and tear away/cut off excess dough (see images in the post). Roll the kachori in your hands to make it more circular in shape. Keep kachori ready under a damp kitchen towel.
- Heat up the oven to 200° C / 390° F. Place kachori on a baking tray and brush them with a bit of oil. Bake for about 40 minutes, until browned.
- To make the chutney, blitz all the chutney ingredients (apart from lime and salt) in a chopper or a blender. Season with salt and lime juice to taste.
Would it be possible to omit or replace the coconut milk? I avoid it for environmental reasons but I would really love to do the recipe...
Thanks!
Clarisse
I haven't taste tested this, but I am pretty confident that you could replace it with cashew or sunflower cream, which is used in this dressing and simply flavour it as per the kachori recipe. A thick vegan yoghurt without a pronounced taste would work well too. Hope this helps! Ania
Well spotted, it should come before the oil and it's simply used to season the filling, I like a bit of tang in my dishes. I'm glad you enjoyed this recipe nevertheless and thank you for taking the time to let me know. Ania
thank you .
I tried baking these kachories.
Mine came out hard. I didnt make with this recipe. I made dough once with tap water n once with cold water.
Baked at 190 for 30 min
They are hard. But after microwave it becomes fine.
Where am I going wrong?
It's hard for me to comment as you did not use me recipe. You are better off asking the recipe author. Ania
My mouth is already running in water. - so many varierities to make!
BUT do you think it is possible to omit the oil in the dough?
Emmelie
These look amazing but is it an appetiser or a part of a meal? What should this be eaten as? Or is it just a snack?
/ Maja
You can have this any way you like, but yes, it will make a great appetiser for a curry night, for example. Ania
This looks and sounds delicious. I was wondering if you can recommend a type of flour to make these glutenfree. Would almond flour (for example) work?
I was also wondering how long these last in the fridge approximately and whether they can be frozen?
Thank you very much for your reply!
Let's me start from the easier questions. Yes, you can freeze them for sure and I reckon they should last about 2-3 days in the fridge, however, they taste best fresh from the oven. As for your last question, I have not tried making them gluten-free so it's difficult to answer, but I reckon your best bet is a GF flour mix, which typically contains some starch and often xanthan gum, which mimics gluten. Good luck and hope you'll like them! Ania
To quote Jamie Oliver:
"All purpose flour is a kind of flour used for all matters. Generally you use hard flour for pizza, bread and food which has to double or grow in size. Soft flour is a flour used for cookies, cakes and creams. All purpose means that it can be used for all kind of recipes. It doesn't contains baking powder unless specified."
So basically, it is regular white flour. Hope that helps!