I love the baby potatoes that come to the market....Yeah the peeling part is a bit tedious though, but somehow I like to cook these baby potatoes - almost because they look so cute!!! I had got 1 packet for some time now but had not been able to make anything out of it.
Yesterday I asked Rohit-Shikha (my close friends) to come over for dinner after they were done with their shopping. And I thought of making Puri with Dum Aalu.
I was down with little fever but still went ahead and made a very tasty curry out of those baby potatoes. I could not take pictures while I was cooking mainly because I was feeling a bit weak (time was also another constraint). Also that I made it in a very quick / rough manner, without proper measurements of the ingredients. I will still try to explain as nicely as possible, how I made the curry so tasty..
What all I used :
(Serves 5-6)
- Baby potatoes - 2lbs
- Onion (large) - 2
- Tomato (large) - 2
- Ginger Garlic paste - 4 Tbsp
- Poppy seeds - 1 Tbsp
- Curd - about 4 Tbsp
- Sugar - 1 tsp
- Bay leaf - 1
- Black pepper-corn - 4
- Green cardamom - 3
- Black cardamom - 3
- Cinnamon - 1 small piece
- Clove - 4
- Red chilli powder - 2 tsp
- Turmeric powder - 1 tsp
- Garam masala - 2 tsp
- Dum Aloo curry powder - 2 Tbsp
- Oil - about 8 Tbsp
- Salt - to taste
- Water - 1 cup
- Butter - 2 tsp (optional)
How I made it :
- Wash the baby potatoes and put them to boil. I used a traditional Indian pressure cooker. Since these were baby potatoes 2 whistles was enough after I put the cooker on high heat. I switched the gas off but let the cooker be there on the heated gas plate. I let the steam inside the cooker pass out automatically - took about 15 minutes.
- Once the steam is gone out of the cooker open it carefully and keep it under running cold water. Let the potatoes cool before you can peel them.
- In the meanwhile, lets make the paste we need for the gravy.
- Take 1 full and half of the other large onion and cut them into about 10 pieces. Put them into a blender, add the poppy seeds and make a nice smooth paste. Avoid adding water but if need be add as little as water possible. I added the ginger and garlic (about 2 inches ginger + 1 whole garlic peeled and pods separated) into the blender and included in the paste. If you have the ready made ginger garlic paste use that.
- Take the half of the onion and chop into fine small pieces.
- Peel the baby potatoes now. You will notice they are just perfectly done.
- Take a non-stick pan, heat 1 Tbsp of oil in it.
- Put the whole baby potatoes (no poking, cutting, adding salt etc.) into the pan and fry them on medium-high heat. I used a very wide & falt pan so that the potatoes did not overlap each other and could get nice space to get fried, as I am trying to semi-fry them and add crunchiness to them and not cook them (remember they are already boiled=cooked).
- Fry them for about 5 - 10 minutes till they turn crunchy and brownish. (I so miss posting this pic now, for you could have had a better idea on how well to do the potatoes..). If you feel the potatoes are sticking to each other or the pan, add a bit more oil.
- Set aside the potatoes once they are done. I could not use the same pan as its flat and I need a deep dish for the gravy!!
- Take a kadhai, warm about 6 Tbsp of oil in it.
- Put the sugar and let it get brown. Keep a close watch and don't let it burn.
- Once the sugar starts turning brown, add the chopped onions.
- Put in the bay leaf, pepper-corns, cardamoms, cinnamon and the cloves.
- Fry the onions on high heat and let them turn nice brownish soon.
- Once the onions are brown, add the paste that we had made. Keep the heat at medium as the water in the onion paste will make it splutter. If you adding the ginger garlic paste separately, you may add it now .
- Now this will take some time to get cooked, as puréed onion takes more time & oil to lose its rawness.
- Keep stirring the onion paste in between, keep it covered and let it be on medium heat.
- In the meanwhile cut the tomatoes into a few pieces and blend them into a smooth purée.
- Also take the curd and beat it nice, we shall be adding it to the gravy soon.
- In about 10 minutes, add the salt, red chilly and turmeric powder, garam masala and the Dum Aloo masala to the gravy. I use the MDH masala for Dum Aloo - easily available in any Indian grocery store.
- Have patience as this onion + ginger/garlic paste will take some of your time before you can proceed :)
- If you feel that the gravy is sticking to the pan, add that reserve of 1 Tbsp oil.
- With the addition of the powdered masalas, the gravy will start taking a nice reddish brown colour.
- You will slowly start noticing the pungent smell from the gravy is reducing, as the paste is getting cooked nicely and the rawness is fading away. Don't miss to stir in between, regularly. Till now try to keep a lid over the kadhai.
- Add in the butter, if you want a dash of richness!!
- So its about 30 minutes of slow cooking (on medium heat) and the gravy is almost done.
- Add in the beaten curd now and mix well. Give it a minute.
- Put in the fried potatoes into the gravy. Mix gently but nicely so that all the baby potatoes are sunk deep in the gravy.
- In high heat, add about a cup of water and let the gravy almost boil. Once it start boiling bring it back to medium heat and cover it again.
- Let it sit on medium heat for another 10-15 minutes. I had the luxury to let it simmer and gravy to seep into the potatoes nicely, as I moved on to start making the Pooris!!
- I got my gravy thickened by giving some extra time to the curry!!
- So in about an hour, with some exotic spices, the baby potatoes could not have been better!!
Served them with hot Pooris.
Rohit-Shikha loved it and packed some with them for the next day ;)
Note :
- Making this with Ghee might turn out better, try it may be (I don't like the smell of ghee, so not my take)
- I bet you will find the Dum Aloo masala powder in any Indian grocery store, else substitute it with 2 tsp each of coriander & cumin powder.
- If you think this takes too much oil, then avoid using onion paste, do it with very finely chopped onion, and use considerable less oil.
- Make sure you have time in hands when you cooking this with onion paste, as you will need plenty of it before you could overcome the raw smell of the onions,but it's worth the wait as the gravy turns out super.
