I have lost touch with an Indian friend of mine who had me over for dinner one day when his mom was in town. She made the best aloo gobi I have ever had and shared the recipe with me. I have not made it in years, but was craving this yesterday. I cannot find the recipe now and am quite bothered by this because there were two other recipes that she gave me that I loved as well. I searched high and low on the internet and in the Joy of Cooking, and could not find anything that had all the same ingredients that I remembered hers having, so this is a compilation of a several recipes and an experiment that went very well this afternoon. My friend's mom's recipe was much drier than this one, so there will be further experiments - this has canned tomatoes to make it stew like.
Aloo Gobi
Ingredients:
1/4 cup grapeseed oil (or other light oil with high smoke point)
1 large onion, chopped
1/2 tsp cumin powder
1 bunch fresh cilantro - separate stalks from leaves - fine chop stalks and rough chop leaves
2 tsp turmeric
1 tsp sea salt
1 tsp red pepper flake - adjust to taste
20 oz can crushed tomatoes and juices
1 head cauliflower - with florets separated into bite size pieces
5 medium potatoes - cut into 1/2 inch cubes
1 cup water
1 inch piece of ginger, minced
4 cloves garlic, minced
Directions
Heat oil in dutch oven - add the chopped onion and cumin to the oil. Saute until translucent.
Add chopped cilantro stalks, turmeric, sea salt and red pepper flake. Mix until well incorporated - almost to a paste.
Add tomatoes, ginger and garlic - stir thoroughly
Add potatoes and cauliflower - Add water and stir
Cover and simmer for 20 minutes or until potatoes are cooked through
Add cilantro leaves
Turn off heat, cover and leave for about 30 minutes (if you can wait that long) The longer this stews, the better. If you can't wait, it is pretty tasty fresh from the stove too.
This is prior to stewing without heat, but still on the burner.
My son's portion - he wanted me to take a picture of his food since I took a picture of my food. This was too hot for him - next time, I'll probably use about 1/8 - 1/4 tsp of red pepper flake. I used red pepper flake instead of a chili thinking I could better control the heat.
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4 comments:
I bet I know whose mom made this for you!! Strange, he's not on FB!!! I totally want to make this now, will have to find some of the ingredients asap.
I can't believe he is not on FB either - such the social bug. I tried to reconnect with him sometime last year, but never heard back from him via email. Unusual enough name, he should be easy enough to find, but no luck yet. Funny thing is I had all this stuff in the fridge or pantry - it was meant to be.
The stars were lined up just right last night, because I found your recipe precisely when I had all these ingredients in my house. The only difference was that we had steamed our cauliflower the night before, so I just plopped it in at the last minute in the "rest" phase. Wow - my girls (ages 5 & 8) and I loved it! The 8 y.o. had 4 helpings. Not only tasted good, but we had fun wandering around the kitchen saying "Aloo Gobi. Aloo Gobi."
@Pat - saying aloo gobi is the best part!
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