Colorful Potato Curry

Potato is one vegetable that is everybody's favorite. I have never met a person who doesn't like potatoes and they obviously taste good cooked in a any form.

I usually make this as a side dish with rasam or sambar. Addition of cilantro and red pepper falkes make this dish vibrant and colorful.
The picture was taken before adding cilantro. The kiddo doesn't like the cilantro, so I had to add after she was done eating.



Ingredients:

• Potatoes: 4(medium sized)
• Onions: 1(medium sized)
• Green onions: 3
• Red Pepper Flakes: 2 tsp
• Salt to taste
• Oil: 2 tbsp
• Cilantro(chopped): 2 tbsp

Tempering:

• Mustard Seeds: 1 tsp
• Cumin Seeds: 1 tsp
• Turmeric Powder: 1 tsp
• Curry leaves: 4
• Hing: a pinch

Procedure:

1. Wash the potatoes, peel them and dice them into small cubes and add them to a bowl of water and set them aside.
2. Finely chop the onions and set them aside.
3. Add oil to a pan and when the oil is heated, add the tempering ingredients and when the seeds start spluttering add the onions and fry for 2 minutes.
4. Now add the potatoes, sprinkle 1/4 cup of water on the potatoes, add slat, mix them well and cover the pan with a lid and cook the potatoes for 5 minutes.
5. Now remove the lid stir the potatoes and fry them util they turn little crispy and are completely cooked.
6. After the potatoes are completely cooked, adjust the salt and add the red pepper flakes, chopped cilantro and the green onions turn off the heat.
7. Serve with hot steamed rice.

Note: This curry can be used as a sandwich stuffing too. I usually make sandwiches with the left over curry.

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Alu Palak/Potato Spinach Curry

Other day when we were watching the soccer finals, hubby asked me if I knew why Holland dress color was Orange. I was like may be it was a color from their flag or a random color that they chose. Honestly, I did not know the answer. Then he told me that Dutch were the first ones to make orange carrots!
I laughed and said Carrots were supposed to be orange and what was it that they had to make specially. He then said that carrots were originally in purple color and the Dutch made the first orange carrots. I did not buy that. How could they even make an orange carrot from a purple carrot and even if they did what happened to the original purple carrot? They should have co existed right? How could a new invention totally eliminate an existing breed of carrots? There were so many questions in my mind and I quickly did a google search to find the answers.

To my surprise what my hubby said was true. Dutch created the orange carrots in honor of the House of Orange, the Dutch Royal Family. They created this by cross breeding pale yellow with red carrots and not from purple carrots. Hmm...so carrots existed in red and yellow colors too other than purple. Reading few more results I learned that carrots existed in purple, white, red and yellow colors. So what happened to all those now? I have seen a purple cabbage but never a purple carrot.

I have never seen a carrot any in any other color other than orange. May be I have seen some red carrots in India. We call them gajar. You can read more facts about the on carrots here. Well.... it was interesting to know about the different colors that carrots were/are available.

Okay, coming to the recipe part, it is not a carrot recipe. I just thought the carrot story was interesting to share.



Ingredients:

• Potato: 1
• Spinach (chopped): 1 cup
• Tomatoes(small): 1
• Onion(large): 1/2
• Salt as required
• Green Chillies: 3
• MDH Kitchen king masala or any curry powder: 1 tsp

Seasoning:

• Oil: 2 tbsp
• Mustard seeds: 1 tsp
• Cumin seeds: 1 tsp
• Turmeric powder: 1/4 tsp
• Curry leaves: 3
• Asoefetida(hing): a pinch

Procedure:

1. First chop the onions, potatoes and tomatoes into small pieces and keep aside.
2. Finely chop the spinach.
3. Add oil to a pan and when the oil is heated, add the seasoning ingredients in the order mentioned.
4. When the seeds start spluttering, add the chopped onions, add salt and cook until they turn golden brown in color.
5. Now add the potatoes and 1/2 cup of water and let the potatoes cook well.
6. when the potatoes are like half cooked, add the spinach and cover the pan with a lid and cook for few minutes.
7. When the potatoes are cooked well, add the tomatoes, green chillies and the kitchen king masala.
8. Add another 1/2 cup of water,cover with the lid and cook for another 5 minutes.
9. Make sure that you add tomatoes only after the potatoes are cooked. Potatoes do not cook well in the tomato gravy.
10. Remove the lid, mix well and adjust the salt.
11. Serve with roti or steamed rice.

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