Potato Whatchamacallit

I don't know too much Hindi. Yes, I grew up and studied in a State which believed in the three-language formula and went through over eight years of school studying Hindi as the third language but I am still confused about the gender of various nouns and consequently, the propositions that precede them. Most of the Hindi I know comes from watching TV, and the task is made easier nowadays by watching DVDs of Hindi movies with English sub-titles. This also means that I understand more of textbook Hindi than real-world Hindi.

All this goes to say that I can only imagine what Chak De India or Chakh Le India mean. Yes, I have Googled, but when you have answers like this:

"Chak de" is used instead of "chakh de"
Meaning of "Chak De" is Uttah De

Chakna means Uthana
de means Dena

It is oftenly used when calling "Chak De Fatte"
Which means "Duniya ko Utha do Means "Chha Jao"

it's not much help.

Google further, you say.

I did, and it confirmed my assumption that the meaning is something to the effect of "Get going, India!" Or something equally inspirational, like "You rock, India!"

Now, this post has nothing to do with Hindi or Shah Rukh Khan or hockey, but it does have to do with the food show called Chakh Le India on NDTV, which is where I saw this recipe for this potato fry/curry/whatchamacallit.

This was ages ago, and all I remember about its provenance was that it came from a couple who ran a home stay or a guest house somewhere in the hills in North India - I've tried looking for it in the NDTV web site under Himalaya, Himachal, Uttarakhand and such, but it's throwing up 821 recipes and I do NOT have the time to sift through those. So you're stuck with the result of my memory of that recipe. Which is not bad at all, so you're not stuck with it, really.

There's not much to it. The only special thing that you have to do with this is combine a little bit of turmeric, a spoon of chilli powder and coriander powder each, mix it with about half a cup or less of water and leave it to meld for about 15 minutes.

By which time you'd have peeled (perhaps) and cut about three potatoes, sauteed them in a couple of spoons or more of oil with some cumin and maybe some mustard seed (maybe even some wild mustard - which is what jakhya is supposed to be - for a most exciting crunch), and sprinkled some salt over them and stirred to mix.

(Please go through the comments in the post I linked to - they have some information on jakhya.)

Now add the spiced water, cover and cook till they are done.

Your potato curry/fry/whatchamacallit is ready. I love little special touches like the spice water - it makes me feel I've tried something new, even a "simple" dish like this feels "special" and so do I, without the bother of having to use tiresome spice pastes ground in the tiresome mixer or grinder or whatchamacallit.

This dishy dish goes off to Susan at The Well-Seasoned Cook who's hosting Kalyn's Weekend Herb Blogging, now managed by Haalo.

Weekend Herb Blogging Potato Humour

Legumes, And a Bit of Cheese

A few weeks ago, our air-conditioner went kaput and we spent as much of the day as we could outside our house. Quite a few air-conditioned stores that day saw us wandering about aimlessly, touching and feeling the goods, never buying. Our last stop before we went to dinner in another air-conditioned place, was a bookstore. Or rather, as large bookstores tend to be, a books, music and gifts store.

For a while now, my favourite bedtime reading has been cookbooks, when mysteries and chicklit are hard to come by, and though my conscience knows I don't need any more cookbooks, I succumbed when I saw this well-produced book called Pumpkin Flower Fritters on Bengali cooking. I told myself that it had recipes my other Bengali cookbooks didn't, paid for it, and walked out without daring to look at it any longer in case the guilt got compounded.

It turned out my justifications to myself were well-justified - it DID contain some recipes that my other books didn't. Here's one recipe that I tried from it - it's unusual in that paneer/cottage cheese is mixed with moong dal, delicately flavoured, very heavy, and I don't think I'll try it again.

It's not really this yellow!

Warning: The quantities here make A LOT!

Roasted split moong dal: 250 gm
Paneer: 15-16 pieces
Potatoes: 2-3, medium-sized, cubed (The book recommends 8-10 small new potatoes, halved)
Chopped ginger: 2 tsp
Green chillies: 8-10

Crush
Cardamom: 2-3
Cinnamon: 3-4 pieces

Tempering
Red chillies: 2-3, broken into pieces
Cumin seeds/jeera: 1 tsp
Fennel: 1/2 tsp
Bay leaves: 2

Sugar: 1 tsp
Salt, to taste
Oil: 2 tsp
Ghee: A little

Boil the dal in hot water. Cook till half done. Set aside.

Heat the oil in a pan, fry the paneer pieces and remove. Fry the potatoes.

Add to the dal, and boil till cooked. Add half the chopped ginger and sugar.

Heat more oil in the pan and add a little ghee.

Add the red chilli pieces, cumin seeds, fennel, and bay leaves. Now add the rest of the ginger and the crushed garam masala.

Add the dal.

Bring to a boil and add the panee pieces and green chillies.

Simmer a few minutes.

This goes off to Susan's My Legume Love Affair, hosted this month by Annarasa.

MLLA Paneer/Cottage Cheese Lentils/Moong Dal Potatoes Vegetarian Bengali Humour

To An Ode, To A Feast

It’s been a last few days of spectres: of mercifully elusive but relentlessly persistent ones; of work goals that don’t meet self-imposed deadlines; of library return-by dates that are sure to overtake the pace of my reading; of a major conference of which there seems to be no mention anywhere except on my e-mail; of lethargy and blogger’s block.

I’m tempted to plop the recipe and get it over with, but that wouldn’t be me. I am always worried about running out of narratives for my posts, and I’m afraid this is one such moment. All my potato memories seem to have been used up for other recipes, and since the deadline is fast looming (certainly no spectre this), let’s just get on with it, shall we? I’ve had this post for about a week now in my mind, am trying to dust the cobwebs so it can go off to Sia and Dhivya who are singing odes to the spud and hosting potato feasts.

Now this is another recipe (adapted from Nita Mehta’s Punjabi Khana) where I used shortcuts and tried to cut down on calories to a certain extent – but four tbsps of cashew is bad enough, whether you deep fry the potatoes or not! It’s a heavy dish, and after eating it for three days straight, I donated it, and I’m assuming it would have been much appreciated.

Potatoes with Curd-Cashew Paste

Baby potatoes – 16
Nigella/Kalonji – 1 tsp
Bay leaf – 2
Onions – 2
Turmeric – ½ tsp
Garam masala – ½ tsp
Chopped coriander – 2 tbsp
Yoghurt/curds – ½ cup
Oil – 2 tbsp (I had some mustard oil lying around so I used that)

Grind

Cashews – 4 tbsp, soaked in a little water (or a mixture of almonds and cashews)
Ginger – 1 tbsp
Garlic – 1 tsp

to a fine paste.


Boil the potatoes till tender.

Heat the oil in a pan. Add the nigella and bay leaf.

Add the onions and cook on low heat till the onions turn soft. Do not let them brown. Add the turmeric and garam masala. Mix well.

Add curds and fry on low heat till the water evaporates. Cook till dry.

Add cashew paste, cook for a minute.

Add about one cup of water to the gravy. Boil and simmer for 2-3 minutes.

Cook on low heat till gravy thickens and coats the potatoes. (As I found out, it was thick enough so I didn’t really have to wait until it coated the potatoes.) This is meant to go with rotis and parathas.

Here are other potato posts from this blog:

Lessons from a Spud

Palette in Pastels

Cutlace, Somehow Or The Other

Herbal Hardsell

Sunshine, And a Bird

Garlicky Spuds a la Mode

No Couch Potato This!

Aloo Dum(b) and Oil-Free

Easy Peasy

A simple stir-fry

Crunchy!

Potatoes Event Ode to Potato Potato Feast