Aalu Shorba or Potato Curry

Guys it turns out that Google is not quite as reliable as I thought. When you google ‘Pakistani food blogs’ it seems like there are hardly any out there. However, thanks to the awesomely named My Ninja Naan I have discovered a whole slew of Pakistani food blogs. She was nice enough to pop by and when I checked her blog out (my way of saying read almost every entry) I discovered many others as well. I have bookmarked many of her recipes to try, but today's potato curry comes from Ambreen at Simply Sweet 'n Savory. When I saw this recipe it reminded me of something I had eaten at a relative’s place and really liked and so I thought I would try my hand at it. SO glad I did! It is yummy!!! My usual potato dish is very different from this one – a lot more tomato, curry leaves, etc but this will definitely come into regular rotation. I made some very minor changes to it, but have stayed true to it for the most of it.

By the way you know something has turned out well when half way into your write up about it you find yourself getting hungry and take a break to eat some more!

Potato Curry or Aalu ki Qatlian Shorbay Wali 
Serves 3-4

3 cups sliced potatoes – 2 large
Vegetable Oil – enough to coat the bottom of the pan
1 small onion diced
½ tsp cumin seeds
¼  tsp mustard seeds
¼ tsp fenugreek seeds
½ tsp kalonji or nigella seeds
1 tsp ginger paste
1 tsp garlic paste
1 tsp red chilli powder
1 tsp coriander powder (optional)
¼ tsp turmeric powder
1 tsp salt
1 medium tomato finely chopped
2 tbsp chopped cilantro for garnish
2 finely sliced green chillies
¼ tsp garam masala powder
Lemon Juice (optional)

Slice the potatoes nice and thin (see below) and put them aside. Then dice up your onions and tomatoes and set them aside as well. Now let’s get cooking.

Put a medium sized pan – I used my aging wok – on medium high heat and put in just enough oil to coat the bottom of the pan. When it gets nice and hot add in the onions and sauté until they turn golden brown. Then add all the seeds and cook for another minute, add ginger and garlic pastes, stir fry those for another minute as well, and then add all the spices. You may need to add a little water to prevent it from sticking. You will end up with an unattractive looking mix, but stick with it my friends, stick with it.

As a quick note the coriander powder was actually not in the original recipe, I put it in because I didn’t realize that, but since it turned out well I kept it in the one above. Feel free to edit as you please.

Then add the diced tomatoes and when they are nice and soft then add in the potatoes and cover them with water. Mine took about fifteen minutes to cook through on medium low heat. Check seasoning and add water to adjust the consistency of the curry.

I kept it thick today, but imagine it would be lovely in its original ‘shorba’ or gravy incarnation. Top with the chopped green chillies, cilantro, the garam masala powder and a squeeze of lemon juice.

Ambreen recommends eating it with chapati, but today I gave in to unhealthy me and had some lovely sheermal with it. Life is good.