Lazy Potatoes

Lazy days are great for food – you can start something in a desultory manner, with the odds and ends that you have at home, and end up with a stunner. This case owes its existence to a telephonic argument with a friend on which city, hers or mine was better (so what if it's full of traffic, even your city is no better, at least in my city traffic moves, in yours it doesn't, and it's so hot, but my city is good for people with allergies, their allergies go off, i hate the thought of moving to your city, and so on and so forth), someone at the door demanding our attention, snatching bits of a TV show, a late breakfast, and cooking and peeling the potatoes – all this time the onions were lying frying in the pan, attended to only now and then, and that's what really made this dish what it was.

Ingredients:

Baby potatoes: 500 gm
Onions: 2, minced
Turmeric: 1 tsp
Chilli powder: 2 tsp
Curry leaves: 2-3 sprigs
Salt: to taste
Mustard seed: 2 tsp
Black gram dal, split, hulled (urad dal): 3 tsp
Cumin: 1 tsp
Dry red chilli: 2-3, split
Oil: 2 -3 tbsp

Boil/pressure cook the potatoes until just tender. This takes about two whistles in a small pressure cooker. When the pressure drops, open the cooker, drain the potatoes and cool.

In a pan, heat the oil.

Pop the mustard seed, then add the cumin, black gram and dry red chilli.

As the black gram turns brown and the chilli a bright red, add the curry leaves and the onion.

Saute the onion for a couple of minutes. Turn down the heat to minimum. Let the onion fry.

Meanwhile, start peeling the potatoes. This can take a while, so keep turning the onions to prevent them from burning.

At some stage, or simply when you get tired of turning, add the turmeric, red chilli powder and salt to the pan, mix well. Let fry again for a while.

Now, after you’re done peeling the baby potatoes, add them to the pan. Mix them well with the contents. Raise the heat a little and keep turning the potatoes. This just depends on your patience. The more you persevere, the better the result.

When it looks nice and well-coated with all the spices, and you decide you have better things to do on a Sunday than keep going into the kitchen to make a sinful dish that you’re better off not eating, turn off the fire and end the endeavour right there!

This goes off to Kalyn's Weekend Herb Blogging, hosted by Kel of Green Olive Tree.

Weekend Herb Blogging Potatoes