There are some staples in every Indian kitchen and Potatoes got to be there along with the Onion boy and the Tomato girl. I haven’t come across a potato dish that I did not like. Its been raining everyday here in Bangalore and this dish made a perfect Sunday lunch. Ever since I saw Prashad restaurant in Gordon Ramsays show, I was thrilled about an all vegetarian restaurant doing so well in the UK. I got this recipe from their Prashad cookbook. Its a wonderful book with really fantastic recipes. The author Kaushy Patel writes about the recipe which reads like this. “This dish featured on Prashad’s very first menu and is our take on traditional Bombay potatoes. One of my regular customers at the restaurant ordered a portion of this every week for over a year, declaring it to be the best curry she had ever had!” It indeed was the best potato curry.
- 4 medium red-skinned or 1/2kg baby potatoes
- 25g dried tamarind (from a block)
- 3cm root ginger, peeled and roughly chopped
- 40ml sunflower oil
- 2–4 dried red chillies
- 1 teaspoon cumin seeds
- 1 teaspoon brown mustard seeds
- ¼ teaspoon asafetida
- 5 tomatoes, finely chopped or blended
- 25g jaggery, cut into thin flakes (or demerara/soft brown sugar)
- 1 teaspoon medium red chilli powder
- 1 tablespoon ground coriander
- 1½ teaspoons turmeric
- 1¼ teaspoons salt
- 2 handfuls of fresh coriander, finely chopped
- ¾ teaspoon garam masala
- Boil the potatoes in their skins for 40 minutes or so, until a knife tip will slide in easily, then peel and cut into 2cm cubes.
- Soak the dried tamarind in 200ml of boiling water for 10 minutes, then pulp with your fingers and sieve into a small bowl.
- Crush the ginger using a pestle and mortar (or a blender), to make a fine pulp.
- Heat the oil in a large pan for a minute over a medium heat and add the dried red chillies, cumin seeds and mustard seeds.
- When the mustard seeds start to pop, reduce the heat to low and stir in the asafetida, tomatoes and jaggery.
- Increase the heat to high and stir in the tamarind water, crushed ginger, chilli powder, ground coriander, turmeric, salt, half the fresh coriander. Cover and cook for 10 minutes to bring the spices together and intensify the flavours. Make sure there is very less moisture left in the sauce.
- Add the garam masala and stir well.
- Stir in the potatoes gently to avoid breaking them up, then remove the pan from the heat,sprinkle with the remaining chopped coriander.
- Serve hot with roti or rice.