Chettinadu Mutton Kola Urundai | Deep Fried Spiced Meat balls

Mutton kola Urandai reminds me of the Sundays when me and my sis used to have these meat balls hot from the oil at 11ish and we would finish most of these before lunch time :). If any at all remains after the lunch session Amma would save these for me for the evening coffee. This dish is Amma's special and most of them who have had this in our home have been very impressed. If you get minced mutton, this is an easy one and pairs very well with just rasam and rice. Of all the non-veg starters I have eaten all my life, this one beats them all :).

Minced meat has very high fat content, so its not something you would want to do regularly, but once in a while its such a pleasure indulging in these mouth-watering kola urundais. All you non-veg lovers, you just have to trust me on this one, this would definitely be a winner in your home.

Ingredients

Serves - makes around 20 urundais
Spice Level - Moderate
Prep time - 15 min
Cook time - 30 min

Minced Muttin - 350gm
Small Onion/Shallots - 10
Garlic cloves - 4 medium
Ginger - 1, 1 inch piece
Green chilli - 3
Dry Red chilli - 3
Coconut grated - 2 Tbsp
Roasted Gram/Pottu Kadalai - 2 Tbsp
Egg - 1
Salt - as per need
Oil - 1 Tsp + for deep frying
Fennel - 1 Tsp
Jeera - 1 Tsp

How do you do it

1. Wash the minced meat and keep aside. Put it on a strainer, so all the water drains off.

2. Heat 1 tsp oil in a kadai. Add jeera, fennel - let them roast. Add onion, garlic, ginger and saute for a few minutes until the onions are cooked well. Add the green chilli now and give it a stir.

3. Add the minced mutton now and saute it low-medium flame. It will give out water, you need to keep sauteing/stirring it until all the water is absorbed. This would take 10-15 minutes.

4.Cool the above mixture and grind with red chilli, coconut, roasted gram and salt into a fine paste. Don't add any water , if needed you may sprinkle water. Transfer to a bowl

5. Break an egg into the bowl and mix well with minced mutton paste.

6. Heat oil in a kadai for deep frying. Take oil necessary to fry only two batches, not more. The oil will get very cloudy after a couple of batches and you will not be able to see anything if you fry the other batches in the same oil.

7. Make 5-6 lemon sized balls. Drop them in oil and fry until dark brown in low-medium flame. Drain them on a tissue paper. Make sure the insides are cooked well. Repeat till all the minced mutton paste is done.

Notes

1. As mentioned after 2-3 batches, you may need to change the oil completely because you will not be able to see anything as the oil froths up and will be cloudy. So use as little oil as needed for deep frying and change oil as required. I managed to fry everything in the same oil, but Amma changes oil once in between.

2. Follow the recipe and proportions exactly, so that the meat balls don't break in oil.

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Masala Fish Fry

Finally the fish has arrived in my kitchen :). I have issues about touching/filleting/cleaning raw meat and hence I haven't really explored non-vegetarian cooking much even though I like eating non-veg food. Poor S, he loves chicken, but I can count the number of times I have cooked it the past few years. Even those few times I offered to cook chicken, it would be on one condition that S cleans and does the basic marination of raw meat until the smell fades off. Finally I managed to get past my fussy attitude, wash, clean, marinate and fry the fish all by myself. So you should be seeing more chicken/fish based posts here soon :)

Masala Fish fry is fish marinated in shallot and spice paste and shallow fried. My favorite non-veg dish, second only to Mutton Kola Urundai is this Fish fry. Spicy and very flavorful. Best served with steamed rice and rasam.


Ingredients 

Serves - 2
Spice Level - High
Prep Time - 10 min
Cook time - 20 min

Fish pieces - 6 [ I used surmai variety]
Curd - 1 Tbsp
Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp
Red Chilli powder - 2 Tsp
Coriander powder - 1 Tsp
Salt - as per need
Oil - to toast/shall fry
lemon juice of one lemon and little salt - to clean fish

To grind to a coarse paste

Shallots/small onions - 5
Garlic cloves - 3
Pepper - 1 Tsp
Coriander seeds - 1 Tsp
Jeera - 1/2 Tsp
Fennel - 1/2 Tsp

How do you do it

1. Grind the items mentioned into a semi-coarse paste, I used a mortar-pestle to grind it. Keep aside. Don't add any water while grinding this.

2. Clean the fish pieces in water first, rub some salt and lemon juice on the fish pieces. Keep aside for 5 minutes. Wash it again and set aside.

3. Take the ground paste, add curd, turmeric, red chilli powder, coriander powder, salt in a bowl and mix well. Taste this paste to make sure the spice/salt level is according to your taste. Make adjustments if needed. Add the fish pieces to this and wrap them well in the paste and marinate for 1-2 hrs.

4. Heat a kadai with little oil to shallow fry the pieces. Add a fish piece, shallow fry on medium flame till golden brown, until the fish is done. Alternatively you may also toast the fish pieces in a non-stick pan.

Serve with steamed white rice and rasam. Heaven! :)

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