Kitchen Experiments: Pudinewaale Aloo

I was in the mood for cooking something which would tease the palate, but was stuck with making plain old potato subzi (the other options were bhindi (ladiesfingers/okra) or cabbage, so you can see why I skipped to the potato!)
But the potato is the most versatile of all vegetables and I thought it could play the starring role in my Bollywood-esque production – lots of sizzle and mirch-masala! :D
The end result was quite pleasing and can get better with slight modifications as I keep perfecting the recipe (I thought it up just today!) But the EASE in making this dish makes it a winner!


Ingredients:
3 medium sized potatoes, boiled
2 small/1 large tomato
1 medium onion
½ inch piece of ginger
Juice of 1/8th lemon
Salt, sugar and chaat masala, to taste (If you don’t have chaat masala – use a mixture of rock salt, ground cumin and ground black pepper)
2 teaspoons oil
1/2 teaspoon jeera (cumin) seeds
½ teaspoon red chili powder
¼ teaspoon turmeric powder
1 tablespoon (or 1.5) of mint chutney (the standard dark green chaat accompaniment – paste of fresh mint, coriander, garam masala, rock salt, sugar and green chillies)
2-3 sprigs fresh coriander, chopped

Method:

Cut the potato into thick chunks, and the onion and tomato into medium-fine dice
Grate/Chop the ginger (don’t bother peeling et al!)
Heat the oil in a kadhai/wok. Once hot, add the cumin seeds.
Once they are done spluttering, add the turmeric, onion and ginger and stir till the onion has softened.
Add the red chili powder and stir.
Add the tomatoes and stir on high heat till you see the oil separating from the onion-and-tomato mix.
Add the mint chutney, salt and sugar. First add the mint chutney and then the salt and sugar (to taste) since the mint chutney already has salt and sugar in it.
Stir till you get a nice chunky paste. Add the potatoes and stir so that the paste coats the potatoes evenly.
(Tip: You can pierce the potatoes with a fork before throwing them into the pan so that the masala can enter the inside of the potato dice and the potatoes are tasty throughout. Else you can simply cut the potatoes into thinner pieces. (but not so thin that they break as you stir – boiled potato breaks easily!) Another alternative is to simple mash the potatoes and make the dish as an ‘Aloo Bharta’)
Simmer the potatoes on low heat, allowing the masala to impart its taste to the potaoes. Stir regularly, so that the potatoes don’t stick to the bottom of the kadhai.

Add the chaat masala, lemon juice and half the chopped coriander. Stir well and simmer for another minute. Switch off the gas and take the kadhaai off the heat.
Garnish with the rest of the chopped coriander.

This dish tastes yummy when served hot (with hot chapattis) as well as cold. You can also use the leftovers (if any!!) as a filling for sandwiches or as a base for chaat. Alternatively, you can mix any leftover subzi with dahi (curd) to make an aloo raita.