Recipe | Kashmiri Dum Aloo – Slow Cooked Baby Potatoes in Spices & Yogurt Gravy
After years of endless cooking and constant blogging, hubby declared that I am serious about my work! And finally I get a new toy to play with and Lite Bite goes digital. Whats more is that this sophisticated gadget as a gift is combined with my 43rd birthday. He is one happy lot now-a-days, for he escaped buying a separate gift for me and is temporarily relieved from his nagging wife 😯 who henceforth will be busy dabbling with her new found love (so says he).
As if PHP’s and HTML’s were not enough to break my head, learning photography, composition, lighting, food styling and all is giving me sleepless nights, all for the love of blogging. Have been bugging friends, reading manuals and online journals like a zombie to get comfortable with my camera. But then as I read somewhere ‘ Develop a passion for learning. And if you do, you will never cease to grow‘…and learning I am…
With a hope to earn my next Hi-end advance lens soon, I promise to keep learning and improve upon my drawbacks and do justice to the device. Wish me luck for my new adventure and do keep pouring the love & support for Lite Bite as always.
Following are the pictures from my basic camera which I clicked with very little knowledge on photography and food styling. Pictures are not sharp and well balanced, but, hey.. at least I am trying 🙂 ….so please bear with me till I learn to handle manual mode and other techie details.
Weekend is the time when I can relax a little bit. No more running around the school to drop and pick up children or pack lunch box for hubby. And one such weekend I cooked this simple and yummy Indian recipe, Kashmiri Dum Aloo or slow cooked baby potatoes in spices and yogurt gravy.
Kashmiri dum aloo is a fiery red dry gravy dish with sharp flavors of dry spices. The special variety of Kashmiri dried red chillies which are mild in taste but imparts deep red color to the recipe. Dried ginger powder gives a sharp flavor to the curry. You need these Kashmiri red chillies to get that vibrant red hue to your recipe, many restaurants use red food color to make up for the non availability of these chillies.
The changes I made in the traditional recipe is to add red bell pepper paste. Red bell pepper/capsicum in the recipe not only gives a wonderful color to the gravy but makes it much healthier and aromatic as well. This magic ingredient to the authentic Kashmiri dum aloo is the invention of my mom, she adds raw red bell pepper to the paste while I roast the pepper for the smoky flavor of it.
Fennel seed and dry ginger powder are the two most important spices that goes in making Kashmiri dum aloo. Though there are many mouth watering and exotic versions of the same with cashew powder, cream and tomato-garlic paste, this recipe is the easiest and yummiest to cook. I made the recipe a little runny to serve it with plain rice and hot Indian flat breads/chapattis.
Ingredients;
(Serve 2)
- 10-12 baby potatoes
- 2-3 tbsp. thick yogurt
- 2 tbsp. + 1 tbsp. vegetable oil
- Salt as desired
- Water to boil potatoes
Spice mix;
- 1 1/2 tsp. Kashmiri chilli powder
- 1/2 red bell pepper
- 1 tsp. Aniseed powder
- 1 tsp. coriander powder
- 1 tsp. garam masala powder.
- 1/2 tsp. dry ginger powder
- 1/4 tsp. turmeric powder
Method; Select similar sized baby potatoes, wash and par boil them in water. Do not over boil the potatoes, let them remain firm and half cooked.
Peel the potatoes and prick each with a fork (I skipped this step…patience is not my virtue).
Heat about 1 tbsp. of oil in a flat pan large enough to hold all the potatoes. Fry them on high heat till they turn golden brown from outside for about 3-4 minutes. Cooking them on slow heat will make the potatoes become mushy and soft.
Blend half of red bell pepper/capsicum (Shimla mirch) with rest of the spices, salt and yogurt into a fine paste.
Optional ingredients;
- Kasuri methi or dried fenugreek leaves
- Cashew nut powder
- Cream
Heat 2 tbsp oil, add the ground paste in it and sauté the paste at medium heat for 5-6 minutes. Take the pan off the flame and add cooked potatoes in the gravy.
Heat a thick girdle or iron tawa and place the pan over it. Cover the pan tightly with a lid and let it cook on Dum for about 10 minutes. This process ensures that all potatoes get infused with all the aromatic spices.
Take the pan off the girdle and garnish the recipe with chopped coriander leaves and julined ginger.
Serve the Kashmiri dum aloo with plain basmati rice or hot Indian flat breads.
Unlike my Point and Soot camera shooting with a Dslr is slightly tough, it hardly takes any time to take out the light and handy PnS and shoot. While with heavy and more sophisticated Dslr camera, I need to pay attention to the settings, background, lighting and so on. Earlier it was possible to take pictures at all possible stages of a given recipe, now I find it difficult taking out my Dslr and soot the beginning to the end result of the recipe. Hope I come in terms with my new toy soon.
Notes;
- You could avoid red bell pepper in the paste and you will not find much difference in the taste.
- The recipe is quite dry, add 1/2 cup or more of hot water to make it slightly liquid.
- Authentic Kashmiri red chillies are the best for this recipe, but you can replace the same with any other red chilly powder.
- Use the listed optional ingredients above if you wish to make more exotic version of the recipe. Add the Kasuri methi and the cream at the time of serving, while cashew powder along with other spices.
- As I added roasted bell pepper paste which imparts wonderful smoky flavors but did not help me in achieving the color I wanted. Roasting makes the bell pepper look dull and loose some of the vibrant red color. Probably I will try adding raw red bell pepper paste the next time, as mom does.
Congrats Sanjeeta! There is no stopping you now with a new camera 😉 I am sure you will totally enjoy playing with your new toy!
What an interesting twist to dum aloo! Looks great…
Dum aloo is my fav..looks yum. Enjoy ur time with the new toy, Good luck Sanjeeta! 🙂
Happy birthday and congratulations on the new acquisition!
Irresistible,droolworthy and totally inviting dum aloo..loving that healthy twist.
Hi, u r going hi-tech these days. U r damn lucky to have a nice cam as the gift from your loving hubby. So glad for you. Congrats and wish u all the best for future photography… 🙂
Many Congrats Sanjeeta.. I am sure you will enjoy taking pics from this new device.. You will surely learn new tricks as you go.. These pictues looks fab too.. Cheers
Congrats on your new toy…nice pics. dum aloo looks yumm.
The slow-cooked potato looks very flavourful.
Happy Birthday and congratulations on your new cool gadget!
your second last click is awesome !! congrats on your new camera…Keep on exploring your new toy…
That’s an super duper gift…..Birthday wishes to you…..dum aloo looks divine….
Hi Sanjeeta,
Mouthwatering and yummm… dish. Great job on the photos….
Belated wishes Sanjeetha and good luck with your new toy. Im sure you’ll have lots of fun with it:)
Dum aloo looks great, lovely dish!!
Congrats on your new toy. Have fun playing and learning with it:) I can tell you it’s more fun than PHP and HTML. Your potato recipe has my name all over it. Thanks for sharing!
A new camera! How much fun is that!?! Your pictures are lovely so no need to make excuses for them. Gorgeous! What a great twist on potatoes and gravy! I love these much better than the American traditional fatty kind. Fabulous recipe!
congrats on the new gift…. you will enjoy it more…. better than the css and html codes. looking forward to your photos clicked from the new toy. liked the twist you added to the dum aloo.
Aww! Congrats on the new camera I am sure you will grow with learning new techniques. And you can always visit the P2P workshops if you need more techie stuff. I am sure we can please you there LOL!
The dum aloo recipe caught my attention and I am loving the sound of the gravy here. Nice one!
@Meeta, Thanks for visiting..would love to drop by P2P for learning & a bit of pampering from my favorite foodie and photographers 🙂
Congrats on your new camera, I’m sure you’ll be a pro in no time but in the meantime have fun with the learning process!
Congrats on your gorgeous new camera and Happy Birthday, my friend! This looks like such a yummy dish!
I am sure you will be a pro in no time and once you start clicking in manual mode you will enjoy your camera much more!.
The color of the dum aloo is gorgeous .. shiny red.
Dum aloo recipe looks very good.. You have very well managed website here.. love this
Congrats on your new camera Sanjeeta…fun!
And this recipe is just delightful, will have to try this 🙂
It is one of my favorite curry. Very nice clicks. Thanks.
Congratulations, and belated birthday wishes too. Will make this dum aloo for there is a potato lover here.
What a comforting dish! Goodness.
Hi there, great recipe. How much cashew powder do we add to the recipe when adding spices?
Thank you,
Neeta
@Neeta About 1 tablespoon or 10-12 cashew nuts will be enough to get a creamy & rich gravy.
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