Potato / Aaloo Kurma

This is a must have recipe in each and every house of India whether it is Southern or Northern part. A nice companion for pulao rice / Biriyanis as well as chapathis. Adding fennel will give the unique flavour to the curry.

Ingredients:

Fresh Coconut grated / thin slices – 2 tbsp (heaped)

Khus khus / Poppy seeds / Gasa gasalu – 1 tsp (heaped)
Fennel Seeds - 1 tsp
Cashew nuts - 

Ginger Garlic paste – 1 tsp

Turmeric – ¼ tsp

Coriander powder – 1 tsp

Chilli powder – 1 tsp

Cloves – 3-4

Cinnamon stick – 1 inch

Cardamom – 1

Onion – 1 small chopped into small pieces

Tomato – 1 large chopped

Potato – 300gms

Salt

Oil – 2 tbsp

Fresh coconut, khus khus, Fennel seeds, green chilli, cashew nuts

Method:

Wash, Peel and dice the potatoes and keep them immersed in salt water

Fry the Khus khus, Fennel seeds, cloves, cinnamon under very low flame.

Allow them to cool down. Add enough water and grind them into smooth paste along with green chilli, coconut and Cashew nuts.

Heat a pan with oil. When it is hot enough, add mustard, jeera, curry leaves and red chilli

Add ginger garlic paste and fry for few seconds.

Add chopped onion along with a pinch of salt and fry until they are transparent.

Add the ground masala and fry until the oil gets separated.
Now add coriander and Chilli powder.

Add chopped tomatoes and potatoes.

Mix everything. Add some turmeric and required amount of salt.

Add some water and cook until the raw taste goes away and the potato is soft.

Shower  some chopped coriander and remove from the flame.

Potato Fry with Spicy Coconut Powder

A simple recipe with minimal ingredients and can be done with less than 10 minutes. Another time management art. Steaming the potato and parallel to this, prepare the seasoning and mix them together with the final touch of coconut powder.

Ingredients:

Potato – Medium size 3
Onion – Large – 1
Mustard – ½ tsp
Cumin – ½ tsp
Curry leaves
Dry chilli – 2
Chana daal / Bengal gram – 1 tsp
Oil – 2 tbsp

For Coconut powder click here

Method:

Wash and peel the potatoes and cut them into small bite size cubes. Spread them in a microwave proof plate or bowl and steam them for 2-4 min by stirring in between. By doing this we require little oil.(Again the time may vary depending on the Microwaves).
Simultaneously, heat a pan with oil and add the seasoning and then chopped onion. When the onion turns tender, add the steamed potato and stir in between for 3-4 minutes.

Finally sprinkle the coconut powder and remove from the fire.

Serve with daal and warm rice

Note: Alternatively, you can add the potato cubes to the seasoning and fry them, which will take a bit more time to cook.

Aaloo Paratha

Though the procedure looks bit hard and scary, it is not that hard. You don’t need any expertise and I made it well in my first attempt itself. No hard and fast rules to prepare this. You can make the stuffing with spices or without. There are no strict ratios of plain flour and whole wheat flour. You can add them as per your convenience.

Aaoloo paratha with hot Red chilli chutney & cool Yoghurt

Ingredients:

Whole wheat flour – 1 ½ cup

Plain flour – ½ cup

Potato – ½ kg

Cumin powder - ½ tsp

Coriander powder – ½ tsp

Chilli powder

Chat masala – ¼ tsp

Carom seeds / Ajwain – ¼ tsp

Chopped coriander – 1 tbsp

Butter to fry the parathas

Method:

Mix the wheat flour and the plain flour together. Add some salt and around 1 cup + 1 or 2 tbsp of water and make absolutely soft dough. At the end add 1 tbsp of oil and knead the dough again.

Cover the dough and keep it aside.

In the meantime, boil the potatoes. Remove the skin and grate them.

I prefer to grate them instead of mashing them as you will end up with lumps which might tear the parathas.

Mix all the spices into the grated potato and make them into 10 balls.

Making parathas:

You can either, roll the dough and place the potato ball in the centre and cover it from all the sides, or roll two small discs, place the potato mixture on top of one roti and spread it flat as shown below.

  

Now cover this with another roti and gently press the corners, so that no leakage happens.

Now roll it into flat disc

If you are following the first method, then divide the dough into 10 balls and if you are following the second method, then divide the dough into 20 balls.

Heat the pan. When it is hot enough, place the paratha on it. After few seconds, turn it to other side and apply little bit of butter.

Turn it back to the first side again and apply some more butter.

Allow it to get cooked for few more seconds and serve it.

Aaoloo paratha served with spicy red chilli chutney and plain yoghurt

Note:

Remember to cook these parathas on medium flame as they have to get cooked inside as well.

Best way to control the amount of butter we apply is, cut the butter into a cube. Stick to the fork and quickly rub it on the paratha.  

Potato curry for poori

This curry is prepared by cooking the potato and green pea in gram flour sauce. This can be served with either poori, chapathi or even dosa.

Ingredients:

Onion – 1 (Cut length wise)
Tomato – 1

Potato – 2 medium, boiled and mashed

Fresh or frozen Green pea – boiled 1 cup
Gram flour (Basin / Senagapindi) – ¼  cup
Water – 2 cups
Turmeric – ¼ tsp
Mustard seeds – 1 tsp
Cumin seeds – 1 tsp
Green chili – 2 chopped into small pieces (You can also use Chili paste)
Curry leaves

Oil – 3 tbsps
Salt

Method:

Mix basin + salt with water and whisk it well with out any lumps and keep it aside.

Heat a tawa with oil and when the oil is warm enough, add mustard, cumin, curry leaves one after the other and when they start splattering, add green chilli, onion, tomato and fry for 2 min or until the onion becomes transparent.

Now add chopped tomatoes and stir again and cover it with lid for 2 minutes. Stir again and mash the tomatoes.

Now add the basin mixture and stir continuously by reducing the flame.

Slowly the content becomes thick and leaves a nice aroma. Now add the mashed potato and green pea.

Reduce the flame and allow the vegetables to absorb the flavours, for about 5 minutes.

Remove from the heat. Though it looks bit watery when it is just done, it will become thick once it is cool.

Poori with potato curry

Note: Do not cover the pan with lid whilst cooking any basin recipes as the basin will get split and gets separated from water. This will make the curry watery

Roasted Potato with herbs

Tried this combination during last week end and it was a good effort. Instead of using more oil, I have steamed the potato chunks in the microwave for about 2 minutes and then combined them with herbs grown at home and spices along with oil and roasted them.

 Roasted Potato with herbs

Ingredients:

Potatoes – 4 large chopped into big chunks

Mint leaves – hand full
Green chilli – 3
Parsley – hand full
Cumin – 1 tsp
Salt
Oil – 1 tsp

Home grown herbs, Mint and Parsely

Method:

Grind mint, parsley, green chilli along with salt and cumin.

Steam the potatoes either in microwave or in a pan. Take them into a wide container, add oil and the ground herb mixture and mix every thing thoroughly.

Line a baking tray and place the potato chunks and bake them, by turning in between until they become crispy out side.

Potato wedges mixed with herbs and ready to bake

A nice snack for the whole family

And ready to eat...

Aaloo baaji / Potato fritters

This is another variety of fritters with potato. I treat them as mild fritters as we don't use much chili in this. Just to make this bit interesting, I have included spicy onion mixture as filling.

Ingredients:
Potato – 1 large
Besan / gram flour – 3/4th cup
Rice flour – ¼ cup
Salt
Baking powder – 1/8th tsp
Oil for deep fry
For the filling:
2 Medium Onion – Chopped finely
Salt – a large pinch
Chili powder – ¼ tsp
Cumin powder – a large pinch
Coriander powder – a large pinch
Lemon juice – 1 tsp
Method:
Chop the potato into thin slices, roughly about ¼ cm thick. Place them in a bowl of water to which ½ tsp of salt is added.

Place the pan with oil on medium high flame. By the time, oil gets heated up, we can prepare the batter.
Combine both the flours and sieve into a large mixing bowl.
Now add the baking powder, salt and water.
Mix the batter well. The consistency should be like beaten thick yoghurt. The batter should not be too thick as the batter will not cooked properly, or not too thin as it absorbs more oil.
Drain the potatoes and keep them aside.
When the oil is hot enough, take each slice of the potato and dip it in the batter and slowly slip in into the hot oil.

 Repeat the same with 4 to 6 slices. If the oil has become too hot, reduce the flame and wait for 4-5 minutes and then drop the potato slices dipped in the batter. Otherwise the fritters get burnt outside and not cooked inside.

Always fry any fritters under medium to medium high flame.
Turn them in between and remove them into a paper towel.
Allow them to cool just enough to handle them.

Slice each potato bhaji with knife or any sharp spatula. Place the onion mixture and serve immediately.

Onion and Potato bhaji

This is another version of bhajis which is a combination of onion that gives the crunchiness to the pakodas and the potato that gives the nice mouth filling taste. And also nice and deep colour to the pakodas.

Onion Potato bhaji

Ingredients:
Onion – 2 large, Chopped length wise
Potato – 1 small, Grated
Green chili – Chopped into small pieces
Curry leaves – Hand full
Coriander – chopped – 2 tbsp
Basin / Gram flour – ¼ cup
Rice flour – 1 tbsp (heaped)
Salt
Baking Soda – 2 big pinches
Oil

Method:

Heat a pan with oil to deep fry.
In the mean time, mix all the ingredients expect oil, by adding sufficient water. The batter should resemble like cake batter or idly batter.

Grated potato and chopped onion in basin batter

When the oil is hot enough, pick small amounts of batter and slip into the oil slowly. Occasionally turn the pakodas, so that they get cooked equally on all the sides. Drain them on to a paper towel and serve them warm.

Note - Greated potato and the chopped onion should be of same size, other wise one will get over cooked and the other will be undercooked.

Potato Capsicum fry

This is another spicy side dish which can be served along with rice or roti. Unlike the other fries, this will take less time as we boil/steam the potatoes (time management) before frying them.

Potato and capsicum fry

Ingredients:
Capsicum 1 – Large diced into small cubes
Potato – 3 – Medium diced into small cubes
Onion – 2 chopped into small pieces
Turmeric – 2 pinches
Coriander chopped – 1 tbsp
Mustard + Cumin – 1 tsp

For Spicy Powder
Roasted Chick pea – 2 tbsp
Grated dry coconut – 2 tbsp
Chili powder – 1 tsp
Garlic pods – 2-3
Salt
Grind them all together into coarse powder.

Method:

Steam potato cubes until they are half boiled. You can also microwave them without adding any water for 3-4 minutes by stirring in between. Heat a pan with oil. When it is hot enough add mustard + Cumin and then onion and fry for a minute. Add the steamed potato and capsicum along with some salt and turmeric. Bear in mind to add little bit salt as we are going to add the spicy powder as well which has also got some salt. Fry them on medium flame until they are done. Sprinkle some coriander and the spicy powder and toss every thing and cover the pan with lid for a minute or so until all the flavours are incorporated. Remove from the fire. Can be served with rice or roti.

Piping hot potato capsicum fry

Bread squares with sesame seeds

This recipe is a good treat for the fussy children also a quick breakfast on a lazy morning. So easy to preapare. I have chosen brown bread with thick slices.

2 Brown bread slices - Thick variety

2 tsp of roasted sesame seeds

For potato masala:

Boil and mash 1 potato

Add salt, Cumin and chilli powder to the mashed potato

Brown bread, Sesame seeds and Potato Mixture

Cut each bread slice into 4 squares.

Cover the bread peices with potato mixture

On each piece sprinkle and press some sesame seeds

Apply butter on a baking tray and arrange the bread squares and place them in the pre heated oven at Gas Mark 6.

Once the colour changes at the corners of the bread pieces, remove from the heat and serve warm with sauce or chutney.

Bread squares with potato mixture topped with sesame seeds

Note: You can also use left over potato fry.

Potato Stuffed chilli bhaji

There is some left over potato masala from the morning breakfast Masala Dosa. I got some banana pepper sitting in the fridge doing nothing. I thought to prepare stuffed mirchi bhaji with this masala aalo. See Chilli bhaji for the whole procedure.

Potato Masala and the banana peppers

Split the chilli and remove the seeds and blanch. Stuff each chilli with the potato masala and keep them ready.

Prepare the basin batter by adding salt,soda and water. Dip each chilli in the basin batter and deep fry.

Serve them hot.

Stuffed Chilli bhajis with Potato masala.

Chilli bhaji with potato masala