How to Make Alur Chop/ Potato Fritters - Vegetarian Finger Food with a Surprise Inside #264

Alur Chop / Potato Fritter is a popular finger food in Bengal. It’s mostly consumed as an evening Snack along with some tea. Some people like to have them along side rice crisps /puffed rice. On a rainy day- fritters and coffee/tea is a must!

You’ll find different variations of these fritters in other parts of India as well- in different names. Even though original alur chop doesn’t have cheese inside, we liked the melting cheese inside the mildly spiced potato so much that we had to include it in the recipe as a guest ingredient.

These snacks can be made 2 steps. They can preserved in fridge for 1 week and you can fry them freshly whenever guests are coming over or you want a snack.

Things you need

4 medium sized potatoes
2 finely chopped onions
10 cloves of garlic
1/2″ ginger
2 green chilies
Turmeric powder 2 tsp
Chili powder
Special Spice 2 tbsp (coriander powder, cumin powder and chili powder in 2:2:1 ratio)
Salt
Baking powder 1/4 tsp
Chopped coriander leaves 1 tbsp
Vegetable oil 200 ml
Cheese papers/ any type of cheese (Skip this for Vegan recipe)
1 cup Besan/ gram flour
2 tbsp corn flour
2 tbsp rice flour
1/2 tsp sugar

Preparation

Make ginger-garlic paste with 10 cloves garlic, ginger and 2 green chilies.

Procedure

Peel the potatoes and wash them thoroughly. Boil the potatoes, drain the water and set them aside.
In a bowl take the besan, corn flour and rice flour. Add a pinch of salt, 1 tsp turmeric powder, 2 tsp of ginger garlic paste, 1/2 tsp chili powder, 1 tbsp special Spice, 1/4 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp sugar to it. Add water little by little and make thick batter and set it aside.
Mash the boiled potatoes to get rid of any lumps.
Heat oil in a pan and fry the chopped onions first. Then add the ginger garlic paste to it and fry it for some time. Then add the mashed potatoes in the pan.
Add salt as taste, 1/2 tsp turmeric powder, 1 tbsp special Spice to the potato and mix it well. Throw some fresh coriander leaves in for extra flavour.
Let the potato mix cool down.
Make equal sized balls with the potato.
Put a cheese paper in the centre and flatten the potato balls into thick disks. (You can make them in large batch and preserve in the fridge for upto 1 week)
Check the batter now. Add a splash of water if it becomes very think. Dip the potato disks in the batter and fry them on medium flame in a pan.
Potato Fritters/ Alur chop is ready to be served. You can serve them with tomato ketchup/chutney dip. Sprinkling some chat masala over the fritters if you like some extra kick!