A crisp winter morning and khasta Kachori consorting with cutting chai, small big pleasures of life!

I am wary of eating store-bought samosa and kachori, but biting into a home-made one makes me feel somewhat less guilty and they sit light on the tummy too! I have no clue as to what the logic is, but you end up gobbling down two at a go!

In Rajasthan, we have daal kachoris and pyaaz kachoris. I made some daal and pyaaz kachoris. You can play around with the fillings as you wish!
You even get  delectable maawa ki kachoris, a sweet khoya-filled, syrup-dunked delight..mmmm! Well, more on that later. For now let’s make these Daal Pyaaz khasta kachoris!

This recipe yields 12-15 large kachoris or 25 mini kachoris (I prefer the minis)

2 ½ cups of maida/all purpose flour
1 tsp salt
7-8 Tbsp ghee/butter/oil

Slightly warm water to knead the dough.

Add the salt to the flour and rub the ghee/butter/oil into the flour very well.

Slowly add water and knead well to get a medium firm poori like dough.
Cover with a damp cloth and put aside for 15 minutes while you make the filling.

Filling
1 large onion chopped very fine
½ cup dhuli moong dal (split yellow lentils), soaked for 30 minutes and ground very coarse
2 Tbsp oil
½ tsp heeng/asafoetida
1 tsp jeera/cumin seeds
1 tsp salt
½ tsp red chilli powder
¼ tsp haldi/turmeric powder
½ tsp garam masala powder
1 tbsp moti saunf/fennel and sabut dhaniya/whole coriander seeds, ground coarse
½ tsp aamchoor/mango powder

Heat the oil and add heeng and jeera. As soon as the jeera crackels, add the chopped onion.
Once the onion browns, add the coarsely ground moong dal and cook stirring for 7-10 minutes.
Add all the dry masalas- salt, lal mirch powder, haldi, coarsely ground saunf and dhaniya and aamchoor and mix well.

To assemble the kachori and fry
Divide the dough into 15 balls to make large kachoris or 25 to make minis.
Roll out each ball and put some filling in (one heaped tbsp for large ones and 1 heaped tsp for minis)
Make into a ball again sealing the joint well.
Flatten with hands into a disc.
Deep fry in medium hot oil for 15-20 minutes till they are cooked through.
Make sure the oil isn’t too hot else they will brown quickly but the insides will remain doughy and uncooked.
Serve with green coriander chutney, sweet tamarind chutney and yogurt/dahi.

– may skip onions to make dal kachoris
– can add parboiled peas after adding onions and skip the daal to make peas kachori