Aloo Bhujia | Aloo Sev

Boiling potatoes

1. First boil the potatoes till they are thoroughly cooked. You can cook the potatoes in a pressure cooker or in a pan on the stovetop or the Instant pot adding water as needed.
2. To pressure cook, take the rinsed potatoes in a 2 litre stovetop pressure cooker. Add water almost covering the potatoes.
3. Pressure cook for 3 to 4 whistles on medium heat. When the pressure drops on its own in the cooker, then only remove the lid. The potatoes should be fork tender and softened.
4. Remove the potatoes with the help of tongs and set aside to cool.
5. When the potatoes become warm, peel and mash them very well with a vegetable masher. Let the mashed potatoes cool.

Making aloo bhujia dough

1. Meanwhile heat a small frying pan and add 16 to 18 mint leaves. You can rinse the mint leaves and then add.
2. On a low heat stir and roast the leaves till they wilt and become crisp. 
3. Remove and crush the mint leaves in a mortar-pestle to a fine powder. Keep aside. This step is to dry the mint leaves. If you have dried mint leaves, then you can add ½ teaspoon dried mint leaves. Crush them and add.
4. To the mashed potatoes, add all the ground spices, salt and the crushed mint leaves. Mix very well.
5. Now sieve the besan or gram flour directly over the potato mixture.
6. Gently mix and start forming a dough. There is no need to add any water while kneading the dough. The moisture from the potato is enough for binding the dough. Or else the dough will become very sticky if you add water.
7. The dough is slightly sticky. Cover the dough and keep aside.
8. For making aloo bhujia, you need to use the disc with small fine holes. Grease the top of the this disc with some oil.
9. Rub a bit of oil in your hands. Roll the dough into a log and gently place it in the sev maker mould.
10. Cover the sev maker or sev press with its lid.

Frying aloo sev

1. Heat oil for deep frying in a kadai or pan.
2. Add a small piece of the dough. If the dough comes up gradually, then the oil is ready. If the dough sits at the bottom, the oil is still cold. If the piece of dough comes up briskly and quickly, the oil is too hot.
3. When the oil is ready and is medium hot, take the sev maker and press it to extrude the dough strands directly in the oil. Move in rounds so that the aloo sev is evenly distributed in the oil. Be careful when doing this as the oil will be hot.
4. The oil will start sizzling as soon as the sev comes in contact with it.
5. When one side firms up, looks crisp, gently turn over with a strainer spoon or spider spoon and fry the other side.
6. Keep on frying aloo bhujia sev till the sizzling reduces in the oil and the color of the potato sev changes to golden. Do turn over a couple of times, to get an even color.
7. With a large strainer spoon, remove the fried aloo sev from the oil. Drain the excess oil back in the pan, by shaking the spoon.
8. Place the fried aloo sev on kitchen paper towels to absorb extra oil.
9. When they are still warm, to make them more chatpata, sprinkle ½ to 1 teaspoon of chaat masala on them. Once cooled store aloo bhujia in an air-tight jar.
10. Serve these crispy aloo bhujia snack as a festive snack or a tea time snack.