Grilled Veggie Seekh Kabab

Summer's here. Almost synonymous with blazin' hot grills, chilled soda, sun-hats, flip-flops and most certainly a whole lot of fun. The mention of the grill would've probably had you thinking of charcoal burning and meat sizzling away on the heat. But, no. This summer, how about going green? All of us could do with an extra serving of veggies. And, what better way to get them in than make vegetarian versions of popular non-vegetarian dishes? That's what we Free-Spirit Bloggers have in store for you this month. 

All of us have in store veggie versions of recipes that normally are made using meat, poultry and/or seafood - all of which also look non-veggie, too. Hmm! Now, that's reason enough to skim through all our blogs, eh? I'll give you just the place where you can get all of this, so you can take a look at what the other Free-Spirit Bloggers are upto, but before that take a peek at what I have in store for you. I decided to take this month's theme a notch further and do away with much of the oil/grease that normally accompanies non-vegetarian dishes. So, the gill was the answer! Whatcha waitin' for? Better not be Christmas - It's way too far to have your mouth drooling the way it is! Go and turn on your grill and gorge on some grilled veggie seekh kababs.

No grill? No fret! Cook your seekh kababs either on a non-stick skillet by basting with oil. Or better yet, pop them in a pre-heated conventional oven and viola!

Ingredients

4 Cups Vegetables - Washed, peeled and finely chopped/minced. I used broccoli, carrots, beans, cauliflower and cabbage. Use a food chopper/processor if you have one, so as to get super-fine, almost minced vegetables
2-3 medium/large potatoes - Washed, peeled and grated
2 Cups Paneer - Grated
3 tbsp Garlic paste
3 tbsp Ginger paste
3 tsp Garam Masala powder
3 tsp Dhaniya/coriander powder
1 tsp Jeera/Cumin powder
3 tsp Red chillie powder (adjust as needed)
A pinch of red food colouring (optional)
Cornflour (as needed during preparation)
Oil, for basting
Wooden skewers/seekhs
And, of course, some salt to taste!

Method
- Soak wooden skewers in water, so as to avoid food sticking onto them whilst cooking/grilling
- Heat about 1 tsp of oil in a large wok/kadai and stir fry the minced vegetables until slightly cooked
- In a large bowl, place grated potatoes and press to remove excess water
- Drain away the water content and add paneer
- Toss in the slightly cooked, minced vegetables
- Add salt, garam masala, dhaniya powder, red chillie powder, jeera powder, ginger paste, garlic paste and red food colouring and mix well to form a homogeneous mixture
- Add corn flour, a little at a time, so as to wick all the moisture from the vegetable mixture allowing it to bind together when rolled over a seekh/skewer. You should end up having a dough-like consistency to the veggie mixture that you can make the kababs. Just make sure you do not add too much flour, else you will have hard kababs
- Roll veggie mixture onto skewers/seekhs and place on pre-heated grill
- Grill until thoroughly cooked from inside-out on medium heat, basting occasionally with a few drops of oil. Takes about 15-20 minutes
- Serve hot with lemon wedges and chutney/sauce of your choice

Makes 5-7 large seekh kababs

Looking for vegetarian versions of non-veggie recipes? I can give you not one, not two, nor three...but seven more. Yes, all of which will be up on Dhivya Karthik's blog very soon. She decided this months theme for us Free-Spirit Bloggers, so don't forget to check out Chef In You when you're hungry the next time.