Spicy Potato Curry

Potatoes are a hot favorite in every household. There are many ways potatoes can be cooked and consumed. I make it very frequently and it is my favorite veggie..This spicy potato curry is my mom's recipe and it tastes yumm.. This spicy potato curry can be served with rice, roti's, dosas or with puri's. It is a very simple recipe and super easy to make.

Ingredients:

Large russet potatoes - 2
Oil - 1 tbsp
Mustard Seeds - 1 tsp
Urad Dal - 1 tsp
Chana dal - 1 tsp
Turmeric Powder - A pinch
Red Chili powder - 1/2 tsp
Salt - To taste
Asafoetida - A pinch
Cilantro - To garnish - A few
Curry leaves - About 4-5

Method:

• Peel and cut the potatoes into cubes and boil them in water for about 10-12 minutes. Drain the water and set it aside.

• In a pan, heat oil and add the mustard seeds, urad dal and chana dal.

• Add potatoes once the mustard seeds starts spluttering and add the salt, asafoetida, turmeric powder and red chili powder. 

• Mix them all well and allow to cook them for 5-7 minutes.

• Garnish with curry leaves and cilantro.

• Spicy potato curry is ready to be served. 

• Enjoy the curry with a dish of your choice.

Notes:

• You can add asafoetida in the oil itself after adding the mustard seeds.


• You can add curry leaves in the oil or you can add it while garnishing.


• You can boil whole potatoes and then later peel them off and cut them into cubes.


• A dash of lime juice while garnishing will enhance the taste of the curry and will give it a very tangy taste.

Golpapdi - Wheat flour sweetened with jaggery

A quick look at my recipe index or the labels, will tell you my love for sweets. I have a special affinity to jaggery based sweets. I feel jaggery based sweets are generally healthy compared to the sugar ones. Jaggery is rich source of iron and sweets with this, doesn't call for loads of fat. Golpapdi is one sweet that caught my attention for the simple ingredients and the easier method of preparation. I have tried it few times and not once the jaggery melted from the heat of the flour mix. And every time, I will put the pan back to stove and melt it and then proceed further. The result was still good though it may not come close to the actual golpapdi.

Cut back to January and news paper carried articles on Makarashankaranthi festival and various delicious treats specially made for the festive season. In one of such articles, I read about a variety of jaggery which is soft and suits for til/ellu ladoo. It then dawned on me that such kind of jaggery is required to make golpapdi too.  I found that the jaggery block which I had purchased then was the soft kind. I had casually picked it from the grocery shop and did not find any difference. Then I tried again and finally met success. I followed Tarla Dalal's recipe. 

You need


Whole wheat flour/Atta - 1 cup
Grated Jaggery - 3/4 cup
Ghee - 4 tbspn
Poppy seeds - 1 tspn
Cardamom powder - 1/4 tspn

Method

Heat the ghee in  a pan/kadai. Add the wheat flour to the melted ghee. Keep stirring till the wheat flour turns into a brown color and the aroma of roasted wheat flour in ghee will fill your entire kitchen. Make sure, you don't burn the flour. Remove the pan from fire. The rest of the steps doesn't require any more cooking. Quickly add the grated jaggery and cardamom powder to the roasted wheat flour mix. Keep stirring.The jaggery will melt and it will comes to semi solid mass. Transfer the mix to a greased plate, sprinkled with poppy seeds.  Press and spread the mix evenly with a flat based cup/katori. Mark squares while warm. When cool, store in air tight container.

Please check what my blogging marathon buddies have cooked for the day.

Stuffed Banana and Red Pepper Bajji

Shoj loves these bajji's. I buy these once in a while. I made this time to send my entry to an event and stuffed it so that I can send it to two entries. I remember making these stuffed ones long back, Shoj didn't like it then. Since it's been a long time, I thought I will try it again...may be he will like it now!! :-)

I really like the stuffed ones because I cannot eat this much of spice. But these sweet red peppers were really sweet, and banana peppers were the same but less spicy this time...may be because of the stuffing or it was less spicy by itself. Last time I made it that time we were in India and did not do it with red peppers. But now when I saw these red ones I thought of making these two together so that I will have choice. :-)

Ingredients:
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4 Banana Peppers
2 Sweet Red Long Peppers
Oil for deep frying

Stuffing:
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1 tbsp Cumin seeds
1/2 cup Roasted Split Chick Peas
Salt to taste
1/4 tsp Pepper powder
1 Onion chopped

Batter:
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1 cup Basen (Chana Dal Flour)
Salt to taste
1/2 tsp Ginger-Garlic paste
1/2 tsp Chili powder
1/4 tsp Turmeric powder
Water as needed

Method:
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Stuffing:
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1. In a mixer add stuffing ingredients, except the onions and blend it to a coarse powder.

2. Transfer this powder to a bowl and add onions and combine well.

Batter:
--------

1. Mix all the ingredients with a whisk or hand to a consistency thicker than a dosa batter and thinner than a idli batter, by adding enough water.

Making Bajji:
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1. Heat oil in a kadai, make sure that you fill only half of the kadai so that the oil will not splash.

2. Now take the peppers one by one, slit once lengthwise, remove the seeds and stuff it with the chick peas flour mixture and keep it in a plate.

3. Now when the oil is hot enough, dip the peppers into the batter, so that every side of the pepper is coated with the batter and then drop it slowly in hot oil.

4. Take a spoon, spoon the hot oil over the top of the peppers to make sure every side is cooke d properly for about 3-4 mins.

5. Flip it to other side and cook it for another 3-4 mins or until golden brown color.


6. Remove the bajji from oil and then place it on a plate lined with paper towel so that the excess oil will be absorbed by the paper towel.

7. Serve it hot with your choice of ketchup or chutney.

Sending this recipe to the Event "Serve It - Fried" hosted by Oh Taste n See  and Krithi's Kitchen and "Bell Peppers or Capsicum" hosted by The Mad Scientist's Kitchen and Show and Tell.

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