Aloo Pudina | Baby Potatoes simmered in a spiced mint and fried onion sauce

It was a whirlwind India trip last month, imagine travelling to 6 cities in 3 weeks, thats what we did. Constant travel and things to do all of the time I stayed there. I had a great time during my sisters wedding, imagine kalyana saapudu for 10 days ;), meeting all of my extended family after a really long time, learning some super authentic recipes from them and the list goes on. Thats a valid excuse to have ignored this space for quite a while :D. Hopefully I will be back to regular blogging soon.

This minty aloo is from before the India trip. Yummy baby potato curry from 660 curries book by Raghavan Iyer. I have made a few modifications to the recipe to bump up the hotness of the dish and S loved it. It was a very different taste - thats what happens every time you choose a recipe from this book. You end up with a taste that you hadn't cooked before and I love that. This book makes you experiment and changes your regular style of cooking. It makes you test weird combinations and challenges you to do something different. On to the recipe now.

Ingredients

Source - Adapted from 660 Curries by Raghavan Iyer
Serves - 2
Spice Level - Medium
Prep time - 30 min
Cook time - 10 min

Baby potatoes - 1 pound
Oil - 2 Tbsp + 2 Tbsp
Cumin seeds - 1 Tsp
Tomato Paste - 1 Tbsp
Firmly packed mint leaves - 1/2 cup, finely chopped
Kashmiri Garam Masala - 1 Tsp
Green chillies - 2
Dry red chillies - 2
Garlic pods - 4
Fried Onion paste - 1/4 cup [See below for recipe]
Salt - as per need

How do you do it

1. Mince the green chillies, red chillies and garlic pods together and keep aside. Whisk together the fried onion paste, tomato paste, 1 cup water and salt. Keep aside.

2. Peel the baby potatoes and wash them well. Boil the baby potatoes until they are 1/2 cooked. Do not over-cook them. Drain and keep aside.

3. Heat oil in a kadai. Add the green-red chilli- garlic mix and saute for a minute. Add jeera/cumin seeds and let it roast.

4. Add the potatoes now and stir fry them well until they turn a shade of light brown - for about 10 minutes

5. Pour the onion-tomato mix now over the potatoes and cook them in low flame, occasionally basting the potatoes in the sauce until they are fork-tender, about 5 minutes.

6. Stir in the mint leaves and garam masala now and mix well. Serve with roti or any simple pulao of your choice


Fried onion Paste

** Requires 1 red onion - thinly sliced

1. Heat 2 Tbsp oil in a kadai. Add the thinly sliced red onion and saute in medium flame for about 15 minutes until they turn shade of deep brown. Keep stirring constantly to avoid burning of the onions.

2. Cool the onions and grind them into a smooth paste with little water and keep aside.