Go_slows blog for recipes and general cooking stuff

One of the problems I have cooking Indian food is that people ask me to make a madras, a jal freizi or a korma. These names mean nothing to me since I cook curry like my mum taught me so I have, over time, had to learn what these terms mean. And whilst I cannot cook British Standard Curry house curries I have got to a point where it is passable to the point I can talk off the inconsistency to the standard as “my take on it”.

That said the vegetable dish I get asked most for is Bombay Potato. Punjab is not a potato county, its rice and wheat, the vegetables tend to be aubergine, okra and the like. So it’s been an on-going challenge to cook Bombay potatoes. Now I do a reasonable potato and spinach dish so I figured that Bombay potato would just be a variant of that. Well, I was wrong. I spoke to a chef at a curry house a little while ago and he gave me his recipe and, judging by the response from those gathered last night, it’s the real stuff.

So, here’s the recipe, would welcome any feedback on it, apologies for the vagueness of the quantities, I’ve tried to give an idea but cooking by feel it’s too easy to forget to measure so it can be recorded.

Potato’s – small, large whatever, when peeled you want to end up with about 12-15 1 inch pieces. I used medium whites since these just need quartering to give 4 per potato so that was easy
1 onion, peeled, quartered and sliced.
1 inch of fresh ginger. If you use lazy ginger then chop to fine.
3 cloves garlic, crushed and chopped
2 red chillies, deseeded and chopped
2 table spoon garam masala (I know that sounds like a lot but it’s needed)
1 tin chopped tomato
1 cup chicken or veg stock (200ml to 250ml)
Sliced tomato and coriander for garnish

1. Parboil the potato for in salted water (boil water, add potatoes, when its back to the boil leave it for 2-3 mins) and then rinse under cold water. The potatoes can be prepared in advance and used as required (that’s what they do in the restaurant)
2. Put veggie oil and butter into a pan and fry the onion until softened
3. Throw in the ginger, garlic and chilli. Stir in with the onions and cook for 1-2 minutes. If you use lazy ginger like I do then put that in first, so the liquid fries off and then add the garlic and chilli.
4. Add the garam masala and make sure everything is coated. Fry for about a minute but keep stirring so it doesnt stick.
5. Add the tinned tomato and stock, stir to make sure it is all well mixed. Once warmed through you have a couple of choices. You need to make a smooth paste so if you have a handheld blender use that or transfer to a food processor.Once smooth you can allow to cool to make the dish later or carry on cooking.
6. Bring the mixture to a simmer and add the potatoes, Stir in to make sure they are coated with the sauce.
7. Simmer for 20-25 mins until the potatoes are tender. Stir occasionally to make sure it doesn’t stick, towards the end of cooking the potatoes will be soft so carefully does it since you don’t want them to break up.
8. Transfer to a serving dish and garnish to serve. I put a little Greek yoghurt on there as a dressing, that tasted nice with the potatoes.