Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Indian Feast Partie Deux - Potatoes!


I made a mustard seed-y, bright yellow (care of the turmeric) potato dish to go with my chicken. It is kind of like aloo gobi, but without the gobi (cauliflower). 

Deep-sea diving mask at the Alameda Flea  Market.
To make: I began by simply quartering 3 pounds of yukon gold potatoes. Then it got exciting, I heated some oil in a pan and, having glanced at a recipe, was instructed to add 3 tablespoons of black and yellow mustard seeds until they began to 'pop.' This sounded reasonable enough - I have heated spices and seeds in oil before to infuse the oil with flavor, thus setting up a nice flavor base . . . It wasn't hard to notice when the seeds began to pop because they rapidly started to hurl themselves out of the pan and across my kitchen. Calm, as always, I started shrieking and laughing as I watched my newly mopped kitchen become cluttered with flying black seeds. I eventually gathered my wits about me enough to yank the pan off the heat and, lacking any better option, thrust the pan out the open window. 
It was all blue skies from there on out - I brought the pan back in added some more mustard seeds to the now warm oil (as all of the original mustard seeds were enjoying their new home on my floor). I then added in a chopped onion, my potatoes, a bit more oil, salt, a couple teaspoons of turmeric, a dash of paprika and ground ginger. I let it cook for a few minutes before pouring in a few tablespoons of chicken stock and covering the pan to let the potatoes steam. I steamed until the little taters were tender, removed from heat, tossed with a half cup of chopped cilantro and served. 
Alphabet at the flea market.

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