Ragada Patties - A New Twist On A Popular Mumbai Street Food

Everything was white and fluffy around my neighborhood today. I've seen my dad clear our driveway at least three times since the morning. However, snowmaggedon 2016 aka Jonas is still going strong and covering whatever was cleared with more white powdery flakes. 

We are hunkering down and staying warm with hot beverages such as hot tea with ginger and spices as well as hot chocolate with marshmallows. 

Although, we didn't join the bandwagon of people "storm shopping", we had everything we needed for situations like this right inside our food pantry and freezer. PHEW!! We just decided to go shopping for dish ideas in there. 

Luckily, we had everything we needed to make one of my mom's favorite street foods, Ragada patties. 

Ragada patties are a popular Mumbai and Hyderabadi street food. My mom and her siblings used to enjoy eating this snack in the good old days, as she told it.

The patties, which are fried potato cutlets, are lined along this large hot tava (similar to the Chinese wok) on the street carts. When a customer approaches the cart, the street vendor toasts a patty on the tava and tops it with ragada (dried yellow peas mixture), sev, tamarind/date chutney and coriander chutneys.

It's definitely a comfort food worth having during this cold season. Check out our own twist in this comfort food for those who don't want to spend all day cooking. 

Ingredients:

for Ragada

- 1 cup dry peas (yellow or green)

- 1 medium onion, chopped finely

- 1/4 cup Hunt's tomato sauce (or 2 plum tomatoes pureed)

- 1 Tbsp ginger-garlic paste

- 3 tsp Dhanjeera powder (dhanjeera is ground coriander and cumin seeds)

- 3/4 tsp chili powder

- 1 tsp garam masala

- 1/8 tsp turmeric

- 1 Tbsp brown sugar

- 1/2 tsp cumin seeds

- 1/2 tsp mustard seeds

- 1/4 cup fresh coriander, chopped

- 1 Tbsp lemon juice

- Salt, as per your taste

- 3 Tbsp Vegetable oil

- pinch of hing (optional)

for patties

- pack of frozen hash browns 

for Ragada patties assembly

- tamarind/date chutney

- coriander chutney

- sev

Instructions

 1) Soak peas in plenty of water over night. Discard the soaked water and wash the peas with fresh water. In a separate pan, add peas and enough water to cover them and slightly more. Add 1/2 teaspoon salt and pinch of hing. Pressure cook the peas for 7 to 10 minutes. 

2) Heat vegetable oil in a medium saucepan. Hover your palm over the pan and when you feel the heat, add mustard and cumin seeds. When they splutter, add hing and mix. Then add chopped onion ans saute for 2 to 3 minutes until onion is translucent. Next add turmeric, garam masala, chili powder, dhanjeera powder and mix well for 30 seconds. Add ginger-garlic paste and tomato sauce and stir for couple of minutes to remove the raw taste. 

3) Next add the cooked peas mixture, 1/2 tsp salt and additional water into the pan. Cook for 10 minutes at low/medium heat under closed lid. (Note: bring mixture to gravy consistency, as shown in picture below.)

4) Taste and adjust salt if needed. Remove from stove ans add lemon juice and brown sugar. Mix well. 

5) Instead of making the fried potato cutlets from scratch, we improvised and used store bought frozen hash browns instead. Simply, defrost the hash browns and toast them to your liking. 

Check out these toasty hash browns just waiting to be topped with ragada gravy. 

6) Place each toasted hash brown in your favorite bowl, top with the ragada mixture, sev, and your favorite chutney (as shown below). I love eating mine with tamarind chutney. 

Hope you enjoyed our take on a popular street food. We like re-creating our favorite street foods that we grew up with at home because we can't always fly to these exotic destinations to enjoy such yummy comfort food whenever we want. 

Have a favorite Indian street food you'd like us to re-create? Let us know. For now, good night and stay warm. :-)