Melt-in-mouth Vegetarian kebabs made with kidney beans

Galouti kebabs, essentially made with minced lamb meat, are known for their extremely soft and smooth texture which just melts in your mouth. Although it was originally made with lamb meat, there’s always version for our vegetarian friends.

It is said that these kebabs were invented by a royal chef for this then Nawab (regional head/king) as he had few teeth and could not chew meat. So, the chef came up with these kebab which doesn’t need any chewing but just dissolves in mouth.

Since, the kebabs are so soft and delicate, the procedure and handling is very gentle as not to disband the kebab. Instead of meat we have used kidney beans to give fine and dense texture that you would get from meat.

I’ve used raw kidney beans, soaked overnight and pressure cooked to tender and I highly recommend that but if its not available in your region or you’re in hurry, you can use canned ones after washing them thoroughly.

Also, I prepare a fresh batch of spice powder every time I prepare these kebab by dry roasting specific combination of some whole spices. This spice mix same for both veg and non veg versions of the recipe. In fact, the whole recipe remains the same for meat kebab just the rajma is replaced with minced meat.

Also, I’ve used cashew nuts and poppy seeds white (khas-khas), if you’re allergic to nuts, try substituting it with sunflower seeds to get needed texture.

RECIPE:

INGREDIENTS:

• Rajma/ Kidney beans (soaked overnight and cooked): 2 cups
• Cashew nuts: 8-10 (substitute with 2 tbsp sunflower seeds if needed)
• white poppy seeds: 2 tbsp
• Besan: 1 tbsp (optional if patty is not binding)
• Saffron:7-8 strands
• Rose water: 1 tbsp
• Kewra water: 1 tbsp
• Oil/ ghee: for frying
• salt: as per taste
• WHOLE SPICES FOR MASALA:
  • Black pepper: 10
  • Clove: 4
  • Green cardamom: 4-5
  • Black cardamom: 1
  • Caraway seeds (shahi jeera): 1 tbsp
  • dried rose petals: few
  • few strands of saffron (optional)

METHOD:

• Dry roast whole spices listed above for masala in a hot pan. Let it cool and then grind to fine powder. Sieve it to get finer powder.
• Dry roast cashews and poppy seeds in a pan. let it cool and then grind into fine and thick paste by adding very little water.
• Take cooked kidney beans and mash it completely so as to make sure there are no lumps or big pieces. It should look like a paste. some people grind it in a grinder to get desired texture. you can do that too if hand mashing is not completely effective.
• Mix cashew paste, masala powder and salt.
• Add rose and kewra water and soaked saffron water.
• If the mixture looks thick, add roasted besan.
• Form pattirs from the mixture. It should give you approx 10-12 patties depending on how big you make.
• Heat a pan and add ghee/ oil. ( I highly recommend ghee for added flavor but you can use oil)
• Very carefully place each patty in hot ghee and let it cook completely from one side.
• Flip each patty to cook from other side very gently as to not break it.
• I would emphasis strongly on gentle handling of patty as it is very soft and delicate and would disband if used rough hand.
• Once cooked, take out in a plate. No need to use a tissue as you would want the ghee to stay in patty for extra flavor.
• Serve hot with mint chutney and soft rotis.

Tip: If you want to take your recipe a notch higher, try infusing it with smoke. Just heat a coal put it in a bowl. place the kebabs in tray and put the bowl with hot coal next to kebabs. Pour a little ghee of heated coal and cover the complete tray to let smoke infuse for few minutes. I guarantee you’ll love the final outcome.