Receta Recipe | Kashmiri Dum Aloo – Slow Cooked Baby Potatoes in Spices & Yogurt Gravy
After years of endless cooking and constant blogging, hubby declared that I am serious about my work! And finally I get a new toy to play with and Lite Bite goes digital. Whats more is that this sophisticated gadget as a gift is combined with my 43rd birthday. He is one happy lot now-a-days, for he escaped buying a separate gift for me and is temporarily relieved from his nagging wife who henceforth will be busy dabbling with her new found love (so says he).
As if PHP’s and HTML’s were not enough to break my head, learning photography, composition, lighting, food styling and all is giving me sleepless nights, all for the love of blogging. Have been bugging friends, reading manuals and online journals like a zombie to get comfortable with my camera. But then as I read somewhere ‘ Develop a passion for learning. And if you do, you will never cease to grow‘…and learning I am…
With a hope to earn my next Hi-end advance lens soon, I promise to keep learning and improve upon my drawbacks and do justice to the device. Wish me luck for my new adventure and do keep pouring the love & support for Lite Bite as always.
Following are the pictures from my basic camera which I clicked with very little knowledge on photography and food styling. Pictures are not sharp and well balanced, but, hey.. at least I am trying ….so please bear with me till I learn to handle manual mode and other techie details.
Lite Bite goes digital from now…
Weekend is the time when I can relax a little bit. No more running around the school to drop and pick up children or pack lunch box for hubby. And one such weekend I cooked this simple and yummy Indian recipe, Kashmiri Dum Aloo or slow cooked baby potatoes in spices and yogurt gravy.
Kashmiri dum aloo is a fiery red dry gravy dish with sharp flavors of dry spices. The special variety of Kashmiri dried red chillies which are mild in taste but imparts deep red color to the recipe. Dried ginger powder gives a sharp flavor to the curry. You need these Kashmiri red chillies to get that vibrant red hue to your recipe, many restaurants use red food color to make up for the non availability of these chillies.
The changes I made in the traditional recipe is to add red bell pepper paste. Red bell pepper/capsicum in the recipe not only gives a wonderful color to the gravy but makes it much healthier and aromatic as well. This magic ingredient to the authentic Kashmiri dum aloo is the invention of my mom, she adds raw red bell pepper to the paste while I roast the pepper for the smoky flavor of it.
Fennel seed and dry ginger powder are the two most important spices that goes in making Kashmiri dum aloo. Though there are many mouth watering and exotic versions of the same with cashew powder, cream and tomato-garlic paste, this recipe is the easiest and yummiest to cook. I made the recipe a little runny to serve it with plain rice and hot Indian flat breads/chapattis.
Baby potatoes, ready to go in the gravy…
Ingredients;
(Serve 2)
- 10-12 baby potatoes
- 2-3 tbsp. thick yogurt
- 2 tbsp. + 1 tbsp. vegetable oil
- Salt as desired
- Water to boil potatoes
- Spice mix;
- 1 1/2 tsp. Kashmiri chilli powder
- 1/2 red bell pepper
- 1 tsp. Aniseed powder
- 1 tsp. coriander powder
- 1 tsp. garam masala powder.
- 1/2 tsp. dry ginger powder
- 1/4 tsp. turmeric powder
Method; Select similar sized baby potatoes, wash and par boil them in water. Do not over boil the potatoes, let them remain firm and half cooked.
Peel the potatoes and prick each with a fork (I skipped this step…patience is not my virtue).
Heat about 1 tbsp. of oil in a flat pan large enough to hold all the potatoes. Fry them on high heat till they turn golden brown from outside for about 3-4 minutes. Cooking them on slow heat will make the potatoes become mushy and soft.
Blend half of red bell pepper/capsicum (Shimla mirch) with rest of the spices, salt and yogurt into a fine paste.
Optional ingredients;
Kasuri methi or dried fenugreek leaves
Cashew nut powder
Cream
Add cashew powder while grinding the paste for more ceamy and exotic version of the recipe.
Heat 2 tbsp oil, add the ground paste in it and sauté the paste at medium heat for 5-6 minutes. Take the pan off the flame and add cooked potatoes in the gravy.
Heat a thick girdle or iron tawa and place the pan over it. Cover the pan tightly with a lid and let it cook on Dum for about 10 minutes. This process ensures that all potatoes get infused with all the aromatic spices.
Take the pan off the girdle and garnish the recipe with chopped coriander leaves and julined ginger.
Serve the Kashmiri dum aloo with plain basmati rice or hot Indian flat breads.
Unlike my Point and Soot camera shooting with a Dslr is slightly tough, it hardly takes any time to take out the light and handy PnS and shoot. While with heavy and more sophisticated Dslr camera, I need to pay attention to the settings, background, lighting and so on. Earlier it was possible to take pictures at all possible stages of a given recipe, now I find it difficult taking out my Dslr and soot the beginning to the end result of the recipe. Hope I come in terms with my new toy soon.
Notes;
You could avoid red bell pepper in the paste and you will not find much difference in the taste.
The recipe is quite dry, add 1/2 cup or more of hot water to make it slightly liquid.
Authentic Kashmiri red chillies are the best for this recipe, but you can replace the same with any other red chilly powder.
Use the listed optional ingredients above if you wish to make more exotic version of the recipe. Add the Kasuri methi and the cream at the time of serving, while cashew powder along with other spices.
As I added roasted bell pepper paste which imparts wonderful smoky flavors but did not help me in achieving the color I wanted. Roasting makes the bell pepper look dull and loose some of the vibrant red color. Probably I will try adding raw red bell pepper paste the next time, as mom does.