Dum Aloo – Baby potatoes in a tangy, yogurt gravy

This Dum Aloo recipe is loosely based on Tarla Dalal’s Banarasi Aloo recipe. Why loosely based and not exactly copied is because I have terrible memory and I don’t recall everything and also I wanted to use yogurt (you see this is yogurt theme week for me at Blogging Marathon) but this particular Banarasi Aloo recipe doesn’t include yogurt. So yogurt it will be for this Dum Aloo, like it or not. Just like they make movies – Endhiran is loosely based on I, Robot because we need comedy, sentiment and songs in a movie even if it is (attempted) science fiction. But my Dum Aloo turned out really good, much better than Endhiran. The baby potato is the hero here. They were incredibly soft and succulent with a lovely crispy exterior and the gravy was fragrant, ever so slightly tangy and delicately spiced. I enjoyed this dum aloo for lunch today with chappathis. They’ll go great with pulav as well. 

The gravy was refreshingly delicate and flavourful and I really loved it that it wasn’t too heavy or overly spiced. In this recipe, we boil the masala ingredients before grinding them. I found this technique really novel and I think this sort of mellows down the whole dish while still retaining all the lovely flavours. That’s my ordinary lay-woman’s explanation.

The yogurt you use would have to be fresh and thick. If your yogurt is runny, strain using a cheese-cloth and use the strained yogurt. I didn’t include cashewnuts, I forgot. I wish I had though; I think it would have added body and would have offset the tanginess nicely. I am sending this recipe to Srivalli’s Blogging Marathon for the theme - “Cooking with curd”.


Prep time: 20 mins
Cooking time: 40 mins
Serves: 4-5

Ingredients

Baby potatoes – 1/2 kilo boiled and peeled
Yogurt – 1/4 cup (fresh and thick)
Kashmiri Whole dry red chillies – 8
Tomatoes – 2 large chopped roughly
Onion – 1 medium roughly chopped
Garlic – 7 cloves peeled
Ginger – 1 inch piece peeled
Fennel seeds/Sombu/Saunf – 2 tsp
Cumin – 1 tsp
Cardamom – 1
Cinnamon stick – 1 inch piece
Sugar – ½ tsp
Oil – 3 tbsp + 1 tbsp
Water as necessary
Salt to taste

Method

1.      Boil potatoes in salted water till cooked through but firm about 10-15 minutes. Drain water, peel the potatoes (you can leave the skin on if you wish), pat dry and set aside.

2.      In a pan, throw in the chopped tomatoes, onion, garlic, ginger, fennel seeds, cumin, cardamom and cinnamon and just enough water to cover them and cook on high till the tomatoes are soft. Let cool, then grind them all with the remaining water to a fine puree and set aside.

3.      In the same pan, heat about 3 tablespoons of oil and fry the baby potatoes till golden brown. Remove onto absorbent paper.

4.      In the same pan, pour the ground masala puree and cook covered on low till the oil separates. This would take 15-20 minutes. Drop in the fried potatoes when the gravy has thickened, after the first 10-12 minutes. Also add salt and sugar and adjust seasoning if necessary. Continue to simmer, covered till oil separates.

5.      Stir in ¼ cup of fresh, thick yogurt and simmer for a minute or two for the flavours to blend. Switch off and serve hot with roti or pulav.

Notes

1.      The yogurt has to be fresh and thick. If it’s runny, then strain using a cheesecloth and use the hung curd.

2.      You could leave the skin on the potatoes but if you fry the potatoes too long, the skin can get touch and chewy.

3.      If you’re going to pressure cook them, do so for just one whistle or 7 minutes or you may end up with mash.

              

Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing BM#30