Spiced Beany Bites

Truth be told this recipe was to use leftovers from my curry paste from the Potato and Pea Curry.   For the paste I'd actually used 2 tins of beans and a full can of drained chickpeas. So once I'd made the curry, I had all this nice beany spiced paste leftover. Then I remembered I'd seen a few SW recipes for onion bhajis including ones where the base was chickpeas, others where the base was instant mash. So I decided to work them both together.

The end result is somewhere between an onion bhaji, a falafel and a spicy bean burger. But most important it's pretty darn tasty and doesn't feel like diet food!

A lot of this recipe was about getting a feel for the texture you want. The mix has to by dry enough to hold its shape but wet enough to stick together so I'd add all the instant mash and then add the wet ingredients gradually with the food processor running so you can stop before it gets too watery.

The best way I can describe the paste was the texture of slightly warm peanut butter. Soft and mailable but fairy sticky.

I also dry fry the patties in a non stick pan. The reason for this is to develop the crust on the outside which is difficult to achieve in the oven but also is the key to preventing them from sticking to your tray when you finish them in the oven.

For the paste:
1/2 can chickpeas drained
1 can baked beans
1/2 onion chunked
2-3 tbsp curry powder of choice
1 packet of instant mashed potato (I used asda Smart Price - nothing but the best ;-)

Liquid;
2 medium eggs
1/2 - 1 1/2 cups of water (as I've said it depends on texture so just add as much as you need)

Chunky bits:
1 large onion roughly chopped and separated into the bits
1 cup frozen peas
2tbsp chopped coriander

Fry lite

Method:

1.  Put the chunked onion in the processor and blitz till very fine.
2.  Add the beans, chickpeas and curry powder and blend till mostly smooth. The mixture will be quite wet at this stage.
3. Add the entire pack of instant mash and blend again. Now your mix will be really dry. The next step is where you need to be careful.
4. Add 2 eggs and blend then with the motor running, gradually add as much water as you need to loosen the mixture to something resembling peanut butter.
5. Once you're happy with the texture, scrape the paste into a large bowl and add the chunky bits (onion, peas and coriander).
6. Mix well until thoroughly combined.
7. Line 2 trays with greaseproof paper. And spritz with fry lite. There's no point making these if you can't get them back off the trays!
8. Using 2 desert spoons fo the mixture into largish patties (don't bother trying to do this with your hands as the mix is way too sticky). Each pattie should be about the size of a small scoop of ice cream. Thinking about it... If you had a mechanical action ice cream scoop you could just use that. But I don't so went old school with the spoons.
9. Place each pattie on the paper and spritz with fry lite then gently press down to flatten it.
10.  Spray a non-stick frying pan with fry lite and heat on a high until the pan is very hot.
11.  Cook the patties in the pan in batches, turning once. Make sure before you attempt to turn each one, they've developed the crust otherwise they'll break up.
12.  Once toasted on both sides, place each one carefully back on the greaseproof and put the tray in a preheated oven at 200*C for 25-30 mins turning once.
13. Serve with a yoghurt and mint dipping sauce (fat free yoghurt with a couple of teaspoons of mint sauce mixed in).