Batata Wada/Aloo vada/Spicy potato dumplings in chickpea flour

Ingredients
-Boiled and peeled potatoes -cut and mashed to medium consistency (medium sized) - 4
- Curry leaves 3/4
- Garlic and Ginger ,jeera and green chilli paste (preferred freshly made)- 2 tsp
-Turmeric 1 Tsp
-Jeera
-Mustard seeds
-Hing/asfoetida
-Chickpea flour(besan)
-ajwain
-Salt
-Oil for deep frying
-Baking soda1tsp (optional , adds to crunchiness of crust, but soaks oil)

Following are the steps

- Sift the besan throug sieve so there are no lumps of flour and you get flour of smooth consistency.
Add salt, baking soda,ajwain and little hot oil. mix well all. Add water and make to consistency of pakoda(fritters).Set aside.

-Heat oil, then add mustard seeds, hing,curry leaves. Then add ginger-garlic-chilli paste to it. Saute for a minute. Then add turmeric powder. Saute till raw smell of paste goes off. Add salt.
 Now add mashed potatoes. Mix all well and saute for a minute. Then lower the flame to medium low and cover up the lid. After about 2 minutes, open up and switch the flame off. Add cilantro for garnish(optional)

- Once mixture is cool, make balls or cutlets out of mixture. The balls must hold by themselves and should not come off. Now dip these balls in chickpea batter made. Make sure all the ball is covered well with batter.

- Slowly, dip the battered ball in hot oil, oil should be medium hot.(very hot will burn the balls or balls will be done very quickly, but they will remain uncooked from inside. And very slow flame will not make the balls crunchy). Fry them to light golden brown color.

-Serve with paav, fried green chilli  and shengdana chutney. A typical Maharaashtrian snack delight :)