The Indian Food Court

Aloo can be a combination to prepare any dish you name for a few. The taste of the dish would be completely changed when you have potatos. Aloo-Capsicum Masala is a North Indian dish and goes very well with Nan, Chapati or rotis. I have already put up the conventional konkani version of this dish in my earlier post for which there was a great response. Hope you like this one too !

What you need to have:

- Potatoes (Alu) -  2

- Capsicum (medium) 4-6

- Onions 3

Alu, Capsicum & Onions

Ingredients for Masala:

- Onion 1

- Garlic cloves 4-5

- Ginger 1/2″piece

- Tomato 1

- Coriander leaves a handful

- Coriander seeds 1 teaspoon

- Cumin seeds 1/2 teaspoon

- Turmeric powder 1 teaspoon

- Chili powder 1 teaspoon

- Garam masala powder 1/2 teaspoon

- Cashews 10-15

Ingredients of Wet Masala

What you do with what you have:

1. Wash, peal,cut & cook potatoes in cooker as usual till soft. Wash and cut Capsicum into small pieces and keep it aside. Also wash and peal onions ( and peal them well !) .

2. In a spatula, dry roast coriander seeds and cumin seeds separately .

3.Grind in a mixer/blender onion, ginger, tomato, garlic cloves, coriander leaves, dry roast coriander seeds and cumin seeds (from Step 2) and cashews to a medium coarse consistency adding a little water.

4. Place a broad based bowl on the flame with 4 teaspoons of cooking oil in it. On heating add cut capsicum and a pinch of salt to it. Let it fry for a while and shift it to another bowl soon after.

5. In the same bowl add 2 teaspoons of oil and fry chopped onions till transparent. (You may want to add salt at this point)

6. To the fried onions add turmeric powder, chili powder & garam masala powder and stir it for a while.

7. Add ground masala to the fried onions above & bring it to boil on a medium flame till it leaves a layer oil as shown in the image below. Mix cooked potatoes from Step 1 and fried Capsicum from Step 3 to it and just stir it for a while.

Serve hot with Chapathi and Rotti. It can be prepared in advance and could be a party dish.

Ready to serve Alu Capsicum Masala

What to remember

1. Dry roast corriander seeds, Cumin seeds on a medium flame just to get rid of the raw smell. If over roasted it will make the dish turn bitter.

2. After adding the ground wet masala to the dish, cook it on medium flame since if burnt the dish will stink badly and lose its flavour. Always keep stirring on medium or low flame only.

3. The oil layer is given away by the cashews and also the distinct flavor is via cashews.

How long it takes: 1 hour

Number of servings: 4