[112inky]

HI friends.. i am interested in providing you some traditional Indian foods... I would like to start with the tasty potatoes....
Ingredients
1 large cauliflower
2 potatoes, boiled & peeled
1 tbsp coriander, finely chopped
1 green chillies
1 onion, finely chopped
¼ tsp turmeric powder
½ tsp dhania powder
1 tsp lemon juice
2 tbsp curds
½ tsp cumin seeds
3 tbsp oil or ghee
To be ground into paste :
2 tbsp coconut, grated
¼ cup coriander, chopped
3 green chillies
½ tsp ginger grated
1 tsp garlic grated
1 onion
½ tsp wheat flour
Directions :
Break cauliflower into florets. Simmer in boiling water for 3 to 4 minutes.
Drain, keep aside. Chop potatoes into medium chunks.
Heat oil in a pan, add cumin seeds, allow to splutter.
Add onion and green chilly, saute till pink.
Add paste, turmeric powder, dhania powder, saute for 2-3 minutes.
Add curds, stir continuously, till boiling resumes.
Add potatoes, cauliflower, cook till gravy thickens.
Stir occasionally to avoid burning.
When gravy is thick and oil separates, add lemon juice and it is done .
Garnish with coriander, serve hot. Enjoy!

[OregonYeti]

Thanks, inky. What part of India is this from? I grew up in Assam.

[boar_d_laze]

Originally Posted by OregonYeti

Thanks, inky. What part of India is this from? I grew up in Assam.

Yeti-Ji -- It's a stright down the middle aloo gobi for heaven's sake. It's from all over the sub-continent. For one thing, half the stuff in this, including the potatoes, are from the new world and didn't get to India in a big way until the Company brought them in the 18th Century. Makes it more pan-Indian than regional.

Inky -- nice recipe! I like that it's a relatively easy to cook, and that you use the technique of combining fresh ingredients with a paste. Most people don't understand how to use onions in this way that is so much a part of Indian cooking. I hope a lot of people try it.

BDL

[OregonYeti]

Well, forgive me. Yogurt and coconut are not ingredients for this type of dish where I grew up. That's why I asked. And by the way, there is no "straight-down-the-middle" anything from India. Regional variations might be a lot more than you realize. The names might differ a lot for a similar dish. There might be an ingriedient or 2 that mark a different part of India where it's prepared, and make it unrecognizable to someone from another region. Even one spice can indicate a different region. In this case it's yogurt and coconut.

[boar_d_laze]

I see what you mean. You know more about India than I do, but it seems very trans-regional at least the potato-cauliflower combination which to my understanding is ubiquitous. But you were talking nuance, and I should have been more sensitive to that.

There's a pan-Indian stir fry that uses them together in its southern/eastern versions like Bengladesh and Sri Lanka (the guy who taught it to me was Sri Lankan), but sweetened, called jalfrezi. So maybe we're looking somewhere around the Bay of Bengal?

I use coconut a lot in my Indian cooking. It's an easy way to marry flavors and control heat.

BDL

[OregonYeti]

In Assam, there is a veg preparation that I know as "bhaji". The name pretty much just means "vegetables". It's a vegetable stir fry with potatoes, cabbage, cauliflower, onion and spices. It's often a side to a a simple meal of rice and mansoor dal sauce (a lentil sauce). Peas were sometimes added to the bhaji. I love peas :^)

The rice was usually a local basic rice, but in my growing-up it was basmati rice, which was a better quality than usual.

When we moved to south India, there was a lot more yogurt, and coconut was a lot more common.

[DC Sunshine]

I like the sound of this dish - but I'm not familiar with dahnia, or what is meant by curds.

Can someone help here please? IAre there any similar western ingredients to substitute for these?

I made a simlar curry based dish last night, but was in a hurry so cheated a lot using coconut cream from a tin and curry and chilli powder, adding peas at the end. Even my normally non-adventurous teenage son scoffed it down

The flavours in the recipe sound like a good blend

[OregonYeti]

Curds means yogurt, and BDL knows what dhania means

[DC Sunshine]

Aha - my thanks for the post Yeti. I thought it was something I was missing out on and by cilantro, that's coriander leaves or chinese parsley in my dialect hehe

Personally, I dislike the taste of coriander/ cilantro, having not been accustomed to it. I'd rather use garlic chives/ spring onion tops, but please note that that's only me, not a criticism of the recipe, just my preference.

i love cauliflower and potato curried, with either yoghurt or coconut cream - yummers

[boar_d_laze]

Not to disagree with Yeti, but I think here dhania (most common anglicized spelling) is ground coriander seed. In Indian cooking dahnia goes with certain things like amchur, haida (ground turmeric) and/or chat masala almost like salt and pepper in NA/Euro cuisines. When you see an ingredient list with one next to the other in smallish quantities, just assume they're supposed to be ground. In this receipe, small quantity + adjacent to turmeric = bingo!

This isn't a matter of language (which he speaks and I don't), but of cooking technique.

BDL

PS. Also, on rereading the recipe, it expressly reads "dahnia powder." Coincidence? I think not.

PPS. If you live in the UK and you like "curries," don't even think about whether you like dhania powder in your food. You do.

[OregonYeti]

BDL knows more about India than I do, in some ways. Not being facetious. I grew up on the northeastern edge of India, and BDL has been educated in stuff that I don't know that well. Kudos to BDL I mean it.

[Ishbel]

Originally Posted by boar_d_laze

PPS. If you live in the UK and you like "curries," don't even think about whether you like dhania powder in your food. You do.

I do and you're right!

OreYet: Onion bhajis are sold here, even in bog standard supermarkets. 'Indian' food is the second 'cuisine' of the UK, after all!

[DC Sunshine]

Ah - ground coriander is the only part of the coriander I like - and I like it a lot. There's not a lot of hot dishes that come out of my kitchen without it, soups and curries in particular.

Same goes for paprika (sometimes the smoked one, but I'll use any sort I can get my mits on) and ground oregano powder. If the world stopped producing them, I reckon it would be a sad sad place.

And garlic. Always garlic (ok not in cakes!).

[anotherposter]

Ingredients:

3 Potatoes
1 Onion
4 Garlic cloves
1 tsp Chili powder
1/2 tsp Coriander powder
1/4 tsp Turmeric powder
1 cup Coconut milk
1 tsp Fennel seeds
1/2 tsp Cumin seeds
Salt to taste
Oil

Directions:

• Boil the potatoes and remove the skin and cut into small pieces.

• Heat the pan with the oil, add fennel seeds, cumin seeds, fry for a min.

• Add chopped onion, finely chopped garlic, fry until it becomes golden brown.

• Add chopped potatoes, turmeric powder and salt, fry for 3 min.

• Add chili powder, coriander powder, fry until the aroma comes out.

• Add coconut milk and cook in the medium heat until the gravy becomes thick.

[OregonYeti]

Originally Posted by Ishbel

I do and you're right!

OreYet: Onion bhajis are sold here, even in bog standard supermarkets. 'Indian' food is the second 'cuisine' of the UK, after all!

My Indian food knowledge is mostly from what might be considered villages as compared with Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, etc. In other words, what other countries would know as Indian food is probably somewhat different than I know. Still, I would love to have your Indian food so available here.