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.

Continue Reading >>

Spicy Baby Potato Roast

I started planning a hurried Saturday lunch menu and decided on the pulka-dal-jeera aloo [Indian Flat Bread/Lentils/Cumin flavoured potato] combo. Why hurried? you may ask but that's usually how my Saturday lunches happen. I have been insisting on minimizing having food outside and the weekends are a big hindrance to this mission. If we end up having lunch at home on Saturdays, we pretty much spend the day at home - that just happens. We start the day waking up quite late and I hurry to get something done before lunch and by the time we finish our lunch its well past noon and then its time for the afternoon slumber which can happen only on the weekends again, so you see how the story of my lazy Saturday goes? :-). So hopefully we can settle into a more active Saturday soon and also have lunch at home.

Now that I have rambled on like i always do, I shall get into the baby potato relevant talk now! So what started out as jeera aloo moved to jeera baby aloo and then I wanted some color for the potato, to be more precise, red color and hence came the spicy masala coated jeera baby potatoes :). The only time consuming activity is peeling the potatoes here, but after that its a breeze! Marinate the boiled baby potatoes in spicy mix and saute them in oil for a few minutes and we have a very spicy and moist flavorful potatoes ready to play with your taste buds.

Ingredients

Serves - 2
Spice Level - Moderate
Prep Time - 15 min + 30 min marination time
Cook time - 3-5 min

Baby Potatoes - 15
Tomato paste - 1 Tbsp or puree one medium sized tomato
Turmeric - 1/4 Tsp
Red Chilli Powder - 2 tsp
Garam Masala - 1 tsp
Coriander powder - 1 Tsp
Lemon juice - 1/2 Tbsp
Salt - as per taste
Oil - 1 Tbsp + 1 tbsp
Mustard - 1 Tsp
Jeera/Cumin seeds - 1 Tbsp
Hing/Asafoetida - 1 generous pinch
Coriander Leaves to garnish - 1 Tbsp

How do you do it

1. Boil and peel the baby potatoes until they are tender but firm. Do not overcook them, they will loose shape while you saute them later. So take care to boil them properly without it loosing its shape and collapsing. Its OK to under-cook it a little. With a fork poke a few holes into the baby potatoes gently. Keep aside.

2. Mix tomato paste [or tomato puree] with all the spices powders, salt and 1 Tbsp water. Pour this over the baby potatoes along with 1 Tbsp oil and wrap well so they are coated well. Let these rest for 30 minutes.

3.Heat 1 Tbsp oil in a pan. Add hing and mustard, when they pop add the jeera/cumin and let them roast giving an aroma. Add the marinated potatoes now and saute well in low/medium flame until the paste sticking to the potatoes cook well and all the flavors come together.

4. Check for seasoning , add more salt or spice powders if need. Adjust according to taste.

5.Switch of flame, add lemon juice and coriander leaves and mix well.

Serve with steamed rice or Rotis/Naan for a filling lunch!

Continue Reading >>

Baby Potato Biryani

I love baby potato and I love biryani, so pairing these two is like a match made in heaven ;). In my initial cooking days, most of my one pot meals used to pretty much taste the same, maybe just a little change in flavor, veggies etc but nothing too drastically. I am very pleased with my variety rice trials off-late as no two of them taste the same.

This baby potato biryani is quite an elaborate procedure, but don't get thrown away by it, because its absolutely worth it for a weekend lunch and would completely put you in good spirits afterwards. So go ahead, do it and let me know how you liked it :).

Ingredients

Recipe Source - Easy Cooking

Serves - 2
Spice Level - High
Prep Time - 45 minutes
Cook time - 15 minutes

For the Rice
Basmati Rice - 1 cup [heaped]
Ghee - 1 Tsp
Tomato - 2 medium , pureed [3/4 cup]
Salt - 2 tsp

Paste 1
Coriander leaves - 1 cup loosely packed
Curd - 1/4 cup

Paste 2
Coriander seeds - 1 tsp
Red chillies - 2
Grated dry coconut -  2 tbsp
Green chillies - 2
Fresh Ginger - 1 inch piece
Oil - 1/2 tsp

Other spices and necessary items
Onion - 2, sliced thinly
Baby Potato - 200 gm [ 13-15 nos.]
Garam Masala - 1/4 tsp
Chopped coriander leaves - for garnish
Juice of 1/2 a lemon
Chilli powder - 1/2 Tsp
Turmeric - a pinch
Salt - as per need
Oil - 2 Tbsp + 1 Tbsp

How do you do it

1. Preparing the rice - Soak basmati rice in water for 15 minutes. Drain and cook it in 3/4 cup water and 3/4 cup tomato puree with 2 tsp salt. I use my electric pressure cooker and cooked it for 12 minutes. Once done, you will get a mildly red colored rice, add a tsp of ghee mix well with a spoon and spread on a plate.

2. Preparing Paste 1 - Blend coriander leaves with some water into a smooth puree. Beat the 1/4 cup curd well and mix it with this coriander puree. Keep aside.

3. Preparing Paste 2 - Heat 1/2 tsp oil in a kadai. Add coriander seeds,red chillies and fry until they change their color. Add grated coconut and fry slightly. Cool these ingredients and grind along with green chillies and chopped ginger with some water to a fine paste. Keep aside.

4. Preparing the baby potatoes - Wash and Pressure cook the baby potatoes for 1 whistle or microwave for 5 minutes. Cool and peel them. The baby potatoes should be cooked but firm. It should not get mashed when finally added to rice. Add 2 Tbsp of oil in a pan and add the baby potatoes , 1/2 Tsp salt, 1/2 Tsp chilli powder, a pinch of turmeric and saute/shallow fry them until they form a crispy golden outer layer. Drain on tissue paper and keep aside.

5. Preparing the crispy onions - In the remaining oil from previous step, add the onions and keep sauteing them in medium heat until they are crispy and brown in color. Remove and keep aside.

6. Assembling the rice - Heat 1 Tbsp oil in a wide kadai. Add the ground paste 2 and saute till the raw smell completely vanishes - about 4-5 minutes.Add the baby potatoes and half of the fried onions and mix well until they are coated well with the masala. Simmer flame, add paste 1, cooked rice , mix well and close the kadai with a lid. Let it cook like this for 5-6 minutes giving a dum to the rice to take in all the flavors. Remove the lid, add garam masala powder and more salt if needed and mix well and switch off the flame.

In the serving bowl, add the prepared biryani, mix in the lemon juice well and top with remaining fried onions and coriander leaves. Serve with onion raitha and your favorite chilled drink. Heaven ! :)

Notes

The red chillies that I got this time around seem to be super spicy, and for me 2 red + 2 green chilli seemed perfect. This recipe leans towards the more spicy side, if you like it to be less hot, use 1 red chilli instead of two.

Make sure you cook the rice perfectly, it should not stick to each other. The ratio that works for basmathi rice is 1 cup rice for 1.5 cups of water. Once the rice is cooked, remove the cooker lid to let the steam out, after a couple of minutes trasnfer the rice on to a plate, spread and mix well. If you leave the rice in the rice cooker vessel , it will clog and will take ages to separate later.



Print this Post

Continue Reading >>

Nepalese Dum Aloo | Baby Potatoes simmered in garlic-chile sauce | 660 curries

I have never waited so eagerly for a cook-book to arrive, leave alone that this is probably the most expensive book I have ordered by far. Raghavan Iyer 660 curries is a modern take on Indian curries written so elaborately that enhances your understanding of Indian flavours/spices. The recipes just entice you. The book is so full of flavorful spice blends, pastes, and 660 curries not just from all over India but also from Nepal/Pakistan/SriLanka . I have spent only 4-5 days with the book and I have already fallen in love with it. If you love "Indian food" this is one must-have Indian cook-book. I will do a detailed review once I am post the honey-moon period with 660 Curries ;)

I had a bag of baby potatoes and as I was flipping through the potato recipe pages, my eyes flirted with the line "Baby potatoes with garlic-chile sauce", I was sold on the idea immediately. Garlic and chili are my two favorite ingredients and it had to be the first recipe I would try from the book. I was blown away with the end dish, the flavors were bursting in my mouth at every bite and it was nothing similar to what I had eaten/cooked before. The sauce was super-addictive and at the end of the meal I was left wishing I had more sauce to lick away :).

I was extremely pleased with my plating for this dish, thanks to Master chef Australia - I have picked up quite a few things from the show. For once I spent more than my usual time visualizing how i wanted to plate it , the idea of running a slit through the potatoes and pouring the sauce over it and garnishing with some leaves worked very well. And S did a splendid job of capturing what I visualized. After-all we eat first with our eyes and nose! :)

Ingredients

Recipe Source - Raghavan Iyer 660 curries

Serves - 2
Spice Level - Spicy and very flavorful
Prep Time - 20 min
Cook time - 20 min

Baby Potatoes - 300 gm [ do not peel, wash and scrub them well]
5 medium sized garlic cloves
2 green chilli
1 Tbsp oil
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp fennel seeds
1/2 tsp nigella seeds
1/2 Tsp bishops weed or 1/4 tsp dried thyme mixed with 1/4 tsp fresh ground black pepper [I used thyme with pepper]
1 bay leaf
Salt - as needed
1/2 Tsp kashmiri chilli powder
1/4 Tsp turmeric
1 Sprig curry leaves

How do you do it

1. Bring a sauce pan with water to boil and drop the baby potatoes in and let them cook with its lid covered until they are tender but firm looking - 15 minutes

2. While the potatoes are cooking mince the garlic and green chillies together and keep aside.

3. Drain the potatoes, reserve 2 cups of cooking water.

4. Heat oil in a kadai, sprinkle cumin/fennel/thyme-black pepper mix and bay-leaf. Let them roast to give a good aroma - 30 sec. Add the garlic-chile blend and stir fry until garlic is light brown and you get the pungent smell from the chile - 1-2 minutes. Remove the kadai from flame now, add in salt, turmeric powder, kashmiri chilli powder and curry leaves, and mix well. The heat from oil will be enough to cook this.

5. Return the kadai to the flame and add the baby potatoes with the 2 cups reserved water, mix well and bring to boil. Cook in low-medium flame, simmering/stirring now and then until the potatoes are fall-apart tender and the sauce is thickened.

This was a good combination with pulkas. I am sure it would be go well with a bowl of dal and steamed rice.



Print this Post

Continue Reading >>