Lilva Kachori
Lilva Kachori - famous seasonal Gujarati snack deep fried stuffed balls, filled with spicy and tangy lilva stuffing with hint of sweetness and coated with crispy spiced up dough!
Servings: 15 kachori
Ingredients
Kachori Filling
- 1 cup Tuver Lilva fresh or frozen green pigeon peas
- 1 cup Green Peas fresh or frozen
- 1 cup Edamame fresh or frozen, can be replaced with ½ cup tuver lilva + ½ cup green peas
- 3 tbsp Oil
- ¼ tsp Asafetida
- 1 tbsp Ginger & Thai Green Chili Paste
- 1 tbsp Minced Garlic
- ½ tsp Turmeric Powder
- 1¾ tsp Salt or as per your taste
- ½ tsp Red Chili Powder
- 2 tsp Cumin Coriander Powder
- ½ tsp Garam Masala
- 3 tsp Sugar
- 3 tsp Lemon Juice
- ¼ cup Finely Chopped Fresh Green Garlic skip if not available
- ¼ cup Chopped Fresh Cilantro
- ¼ cup Hempseeds replace it with 2 tbsp of White Sesame Seeds if preferred or Hempseeds is not available
- ¼ cup Finely Chopped Cashew
- ¼ cup Raisins
- ¼ cup Grated Fresh Coconut
Outside Coating
- 1¼ cup Whole Wheat Flour
- ½ tsp Cumin Powder
- ½ tsp Salt
- ¼ tsp Red Chili Powder
- ¼ tsp Turmeric Powder
- 3 tbsp Oil
- ⅜ cup Water ¼ + ⅛ (if need more than ¼)
Other
- Oil for deep frying peanut oil is preferred
Instructions
Make the dough for coating
- Mix whole wheat flour, salt, red chili powder, turmeric powder, cumin powder & oil evenly.
- Use ¼ cup of warm water to start forming the dough. If need more water, add 1 tbsp at a time to form playdough like dough. It should not be too soft or too hard. It should not stick to your hands once well formed and you should be able to roll it without using any dry flour.
- Once dough is formed, cover it for at least 10 minutes.
Make the filling
- Mix tuver lilva, green peas, edamade. Wash/run them through warm water for few times. Then drain all the water out by letting them sit in a strainer for few minutes. Running lilva through hot/warm water few times helps getting rid of that weird smell you might get while using frozen.
- Blend mixed lilva using a food processor to coarse mixture.
- Heat 3 tbsp of oil in a heavy bottom wide pan.
- Saute ginger & thai green chili paste along with minced garlic on low heat until the raw smell of garlic is gone, do not brown/burn it.
- Add in asafetida & turmeric powder. Mix well. Cook it for few more seconds on low heat.
- Add in coarsly ground lilva mixture. Mix well and saute for 5-7 minutes on medium heat while stirring few times.
- Add in red chili powder, salt, cumin coriander powder, garam masala, sugar. Mix well.
- Add in lemon juice & Hempseeds (or white sesame seeds), mix well.
- Garnish it with fresh green garlic (if using any), cilantro, grated coconut, finely chopped cashew & raisins. Mix well.
- Turn the heat off. Once cool enough to handle with hands, form 15 ish even sized tight balls. Keep them aside.
Assemble and fry the kachori
- The coating dough you have covered earlier, uncover and kneed it to smooth consistency. Form 15 ish small dough balls.
- Start rolling one dough ball at a time. Roll it to not so thin, not so thick small rounds (2 times bigger than the filling balls, so that you can cover the filling balls inside the rolled dough).
- Place the tightly formed filling ball in the middle of the rolled dough. Start to bring the edges together and pinch the dough ball, making sure the filling is nicely covered with the dough, and the coating does not break.
- Discard the access dough you might have left after pinching it together. Please refer to the video above!
- Gently roll the prepared ball between your palms, making sure the filling inside does not fall apart. Cover it under a clean cotton towel until ready to deep fry (do not let it rest for more than 15-20 minutes).
- Once all the kachoris are assembled, deep fry them in hot oil on medium heat, flipping them frequently on all sides until kachoris are golden brown.
- Once all the kachoris are fried, simply serve them with spicy green chutney & sweet data tamarind chutney!