Crispy Veggie balls.

Crispy Veggie balls in pitta bread- Fresh vegetables cooked and flavoured in a blend of mild aromatic spices rolled into balls and encased in breadcrumbs. Shallow fried with minimum oil to make them crispy brown and golden. All served in warm pitta bread with a garnish of healthy garden salad and sauces.
Ingredients:

2 medium potatoes
4 oz frozen or fresh green peas
1 large carrot or 2 small
4 oz frozen or fresh sweet corn
2 green chillies finely chopped (optional-omit for children)
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon turmeric powder
½ teaspoon chilli powder
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 teaspoons corn flour
4 tablespoons bread crumbs
2 tablespoons breadcrumbs for coating the veggie balls in
1 tablespoon sunflower oil for cooking
2 tablespoons sunflower oil for shallow frying


For serving:

4 pitta bread
1 bowl mixed salad finely chopped (carrots, cucumber, tomatoes, lettuce,)
Apple chutney






Method:

1. Peel and grate the potatoes.
2. Coarsely grind the peas and sweet corn
3. Peel and grate the carrot.
4. In a pan heat one tablespoon oil, add the potatoes, carrots, peas and sweet corn.
5. Stir fry for 6-8 minutes till cooked.
6. Add the salt, chillies, turmeric, chilli powder and lemon juice and stir fry for 2 more minutes.
7. Cool the mixture and once cooled add the corn flour and bread crumbs and mix in.
8. Make 16 small ping pong ball sized balls from the mixture.



9 .In a dish place the bread crumbs, roll the balls in the breadcrumbs to coat them. (You may dip balls in milk prior to rolling in breadcrumbs if you finds crumbs are not sticking) Chill the breadcrumb coated balls in the fridge for 30 minutes.(This step is important to stop balls falling apart when shallow frying.)
10. After half hour oil an appam pan and allow to heat up. Place the balls in the appam holes and cook on medium heat turning intermittently to ensure veggie balls are cooked golden brown all over. Takes approx 5-7 minutes.
11. Drain on kitchen paper and repeat process for remaining veggie balls.

To serve:

1. Place the pitta bread in the toaster and toast lightly.
2. Split open the centre; fill with the crispy veggie balls, top with salad and apple chutney and sweet red pepper chilli sauce. Serve immediately.



NB-You may change the vegetables to suit your taste and tortillas wraps or rotis can be substituted for pitta bread .If you don't have an appam pan ,crispy veggie balls can be shallow fried in an ordinary frying pan.

You may like falafel.