Cauliflower and Potato Curry / Aloo Ghobi
I have cauliflower. I don’t quite have potatoes. I decide to proceed anyway.
While it makes a great vegetable side dish eaten with rice, I like to have aloo ghobi with parathas / roti canai. I’ll make usually make a large amount and keep it in the fridge (it tastes better on the second day) after which meals are a 5 minute job of warming up the aloo ghobi and frying a paratha or two (or three).
So today I have a decent amount of cauliflower, which i cut up into little florets (good to have them about the same size so they cook evenly).
Ideally we should use 1 or 2 large potatoes, peeled and then diced. I didn’t have any large potatoes however. Instead I found a bag of “cocktail potatoes” that I bought some weeks ago. They’re smaller than golf balls and were still good, however … they’re not really meant to have their skins peeled off. They’re so tiny that I would probably cut myself if I used a peeler, and with a knife there would be very little potato left. So I cut them into quarters and left the skin on …
Both the cauliflower and potatoes were boiled until half cooked, about 8 minutes. Keep the water.
Next I heated up some oil in my non-stick wok, tossed in a few cardamom pods, a stick of cinnamon, 1 bay leaf and a teaspoon of cumin seeds. Stir around a bit until the spices release their aroma.
It smells amazing already!
Next I added in some diced onions. Reduce the heat and stir so they don’t get burnt.
While frying the onions, I also diced a few tomatoes.
A teaspoon of minced ginger goes in next (yeah, I got the sequence wrong, it should be added before the tomatoes and allowed to cook in the hot pan for a bit).
Next go in the chopped tomatoes.
Prepare the spices …
Add in …
- 3/4 teaspoon turmeric
- 1 teaspoon of coriander powder
- 1 teaspoon of chili powder
- 1 teaspoon of garam masala
- 1/2 teaspoon of black pepper
- 1 teaspoon of salt
These are all “agak-agak” so feel free to adjust the quantities.
Mix it all up to form a paste. Let it cook till the oil separates.
now add in 1 cup of the stock from earlier (plain water will do if you forgot to keep it)
Stir around till you have the base of the curry.
Add in the potatoes.
Add in the cauliflower.
stir a round
cover for a few minutes to let the steam finish cooking the cauliflower and potatoes. See
Remove the lid, and reduce the gravy to the consistency you like (some people like it very dry, I prefer to have a little bit of gravy). Have a taste and add spices and salt to suit your tastes.
I like to give it a bit of a zing by squeezing the juice of half a lime.
Finally sprinkle some chopped coriander over it.
Next we need to prepare the parathas/roti canai. I like this brand of frozen paratha as it’s quick to prepare and quite crispy when fried.
heat up a large flat pan (no oil needed). Remove one piece of frozen paratha from the packet (no defrosting needed, but unless you’re going to cook the next one immediately, put the bag back into the freezer), remove the protective plastic and lay the paratha flat on the pan.
Flip it over when the bottom side is sufficiently crispy.
Serve with the aloo ghobi.
The skins on the potatoes didn’t bother me too much, although it would have been better to have larger potatoes and peeled the skins off.
