Method
Take a wide bottomed pan (kadahi). Add 2 tbsp of oil, allowing it to heat up.
Add about 5 garlic cloves & an ½ inch pc of ginger, crushed in a pastel, to the pan. Fry for a minute on low flame for the flavours to seep in the oil.
Add the thoroughly washed (to cleanse them of any residue of soil) jacket potatoes to the pan. Since this is home harvest, one’ll come across all sizes of the baby potatoes. To ensure that they are all cooked at around the same time, I cut the bigger ones into halves. This problem doesn’t arise when one buys the baby potatoes from the market, since there they have been already graded into uniform sized lots.
Fry the potatoes on high flame, till they show signs of crisping a bit, and all moisture evaporates. This process also cooks the potatoes about 50%. And infuse them with the flavours of ginger & garlic. At this point, using a slatted spatula, remove the potatoes to a separate bowl.
(An informed, experienced reader is likely to question as to why I chose to fry the potatoes first, since they could have been so easily cooked in the later stage also… I do it because, I like to 😊 … and I do it with a lot veggies that do not have to otherwise go through the frying stage before the water for the gravy is added. Something like the veggies in the soups…I always give a quick sauté in butter, on high heat, to all soup veggies…onion, garlic, ginger, peas, carrots, spinach, tomatoes…or what have you. I do that because I am not very comfortable with the raw smell that prevails after all that cooking even otherwise. On the other hand, sautéing them beforehand, lends a beautiful flavour to the food. My Experience.)
Coming back to the recipe, make a paste of the remaining ginger & garlic, and add it to the oil in the pan. Fry for a couple of minutes.
Add onion paste to the pan, keep frying till the oil separates.
Add whisked curd, along with salt (as per taste), Red pepper powder 1 tsp, Kashmiri mirch powder 2 tsp (for colour), 1 tsp haldi powder, 2 tsp dhaniya powder (and amchur, mango powder, if you are so inclined).
Cook till the oil has separated. Add about 200 ml (hot) water, 1 tsp garam masala, fresh green peppers (de-seeded) , half of the fresh green coriander (chopped) AND the (once-fried) baby potatoes to the pan. Cover, and let cook on the sim. Keep stirring occasionally.
When the potatoes are almost fully done, add the remaining chopped green coriander. Keep on Dum for a couple of minutes. Take off the gas stove, and let rest for 5 minutes, before serving.
Ensure that the gravy is not thin & runny. Doesn’t work with this dish.
