Boil potatoes until just done. They must be firm and not mushy. You can boil them either in a pressure cooker, steamer or in a pot.

When done, crumble them lightly.

Make a coarse paste on green chilli, garlic and ginger.

Heat oil in a pan. Add mustard seeds.

When they begin to pop, add curry leaves and fry until crisp. Add ginger garlic and green chili paste.

Fry on a low heat until it turns fragrant.

Add hing, salt, turmeric and red chili powder.

Mix well and add potatoes and coriander leaves. Turn off the stove and mix everything well. Taste test and adjust salt.

Cool this mixture and make 7 to 8 balls.

Heat oil for deep frying in a kadai.

Add besan and rice flour or cornstarch to a mixing bowl.

Add salt, hing, turmeric and red chili powder (optional). Mix everything well adding water as needed and make neither too thick nor too thin batter. Taste test and adjust salt. For batter consistency check the video.

When the oil is hot enough, add a tiny pinch of soda to the batter. Mix well. This is optional.

Check if the oil is hot enough by dropping a small amount of batter in oil. The batter should sizzle and rise to the surface.

Regulate the flame to medium.

Dip each ball in the batter, coat the potato balls with batter and drop in oil. You can use your fingers or a tbsp to do this. You can drop 3 to 5 balls in each batch depending on the size of your kadai.

Do not disturb them for a while until the batter becomes firm. Gently stir and fry until golden.

Drain them to a cooling rack. To fry the next batch make sure the oil is hot but not smoking hot.

Serve batata vada hot with green chutney or sandwich them in pav along with green chutney, dry garlic chutney & fried green chilies.