Receta Alugadda Vepudu (Spicy Potato Fry)
I wanted to keep the theme for this month's Cooking from Cookbook Challenge same as the theme for the on-going month long marathon, which means I will be posting some Indian dishes from cookbooks every weekend.
For the first week, I'm cooking from 'The India Cookbook' by Pushpesh Pant. This is a HUGE book with around 1000 recipes from all over India. I remember borrowing this book from the library couple of years back, but returned it without cooking anything from it because I was literally overwhelmed with the number of dishes in the book and couldn't decide what to make before I had to return the book.
This time I borrowed it again, hoping that it would help for the A-Z Indian states marathon. I couldn't find many recipes from the states I was looking for, but ended up bookmarking other dishes that I wanted to make for CCChallenge. Unfortunately I sat on the book for too long not doing anything with it that I had to return it to the library yesterday. I was able to make only 1 dish from it. I went ahead and requested it again, so at least I can make the dishes that I bookmarked.
I was inspired to make a thali after looking at the amazing thalis on Rajani's and Manjula's blogs. I have a very very simple Andhra thali and is nowhere close to comparison to either of their thalis. Here's what I made for the thali:
Author says the origin of today's curry is Andhra/ Hyderabad. This is a simple potato fry with spices and the addition of these spices really makes this dish extra special. My potato-loving husband absolutely loved this dish. Original recipe used whole spices that are ground to a powder, but I just used the already ground spices that I had in the pantry to save time.
Ingredients:
- Potatoes - 3 medium, boiled, peeled and chopped
- Mustard seeds - 1tsp
- Cumin seeds - 1tsp
- Salt - to taste
- For the Spice Powder:*
- Coriander seeds - 1tbsp
- Cumin seeds - 1tsp
- Cinnamon - 1" piece
- Cloves - 4
- Dry red chili - 4, broken
- Turmeric - ½tsp
- Salt - to taste
- For the Tempering:
- Onion - 1 medium, thinly sliced
Curry leaves - 10~12
Method:
Grind all the ingredients under Spice Powder into a powder. Set aside until ready to use.*
Heat 1tbsp oil in a nonstick pan, add the mustard and cumin seeds. Once the seeds start to splutter, add the boiled and chopped potatoes and fry on medium flame until golden, about 5~6 minutes. Add spice powder. Cook for 1~2 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from flame and set aside.
In another pan, heat 2tsp oil. Add curry leaves and sliced onions. Cook on medium flame until onions are golden, about 5~6 minutes.
Top the potatoes with the onions and serve with white rice.
* Spice Powder from Ground Spices: Simply mix all the ground spices in a small bowl and add to the curry in the 2nd step.
Ground Coriander - 1tbsp
Ground Cumin - 1tsp
Ground Cinnamon - ½tsp
Cloves - ¼tsp
Red chili powder - 1~2tsp (adjust as per taste)