A few days before Deepavali, I was sitting down pondering my impending festive menu. I like planning things well in advance so I can do the required prep and be on top of things when the time comes. Leaving things to last minute and scrambling around like a headless chicken makes me anxious so I generally avoid getting into such situations. Anyway, I didn’t feel like going the usual roti, paratha, subzi, pulao/biryani route so after some deliberation, I settled on poori.
For the uninitiated, poori is a type of deep-fried Indian bread that pairs well with almost any kind of dal, subzi or curry. There are many different variations of making poori (bhatura, luchi, palak poori, bedmi poori, tomato poori, stuffed poori, beetroot poori, ragi poori etc). They are even served with certain traditional Indian sweets such as aamras or halwa as a side dish.
Poori is one of those dishes that you simply cannot dislike. If you do, then there could be something fundamentally wrong with you 😆 My husband's and my love for poori knows no bounds. Although I generally limit myself to making pooris to once or max, twice a month (to keep the expanding waistline in check), I do make exceptions on festivals and celebratory occasions. My initial attempts at making pooris almost always used to end in disaster followed by frantic calls home but after a few sessions of consultations with my mum and MIL and several trials, I managed to gain the much-needed know-how (touchwood!).
I decided to make my second most favourite accompaniment for poori (the first is chole, obviously) which is dum aloo. It brings back a lot of fond memories because my mum used to make palak poori and dum aloo on special occasions and the aroma that came wafting out of the kitchen was enough to get me and my siblings bolting downstairs for dinner. Although I have tried my mum’s recipe in the past, I was not satisfied with the results because it didn’t quite taste like the one she used to make. I always felt something was missing. After that, each time, I would experiment with a different recipe with varying degrees of success.
The recipe I’m sharing with you today has been adapted from Tarla Dalal. I tried it out after incorporating some minor changes of my own and the result was finger licking good. It had a deep orange hue, great aroma and a perfect balance of tanginess, sweetness and spice. The recipe is pretty simple and straightforward. It doesn't call for onions so you can save some of those precious tears 😛 You can even skip the garlic but I simply cannot do without garlic and hence, I have incorporated it. The best part about this recipe however is deep-frying the baby potatoes with the skin left on. In the past, all the recipes I had referred to gave instructions to peel the potatoes which can be really cumbersome especially with teeny-tiny potatoes. It never occurred to me to leave the skins on (duh!). It would be best if you could get the thin skinned variety but it isn't really a deal breaker. Retaining the skins reduces the preparation time by at least 15 mins and the end result is still pretty good. If anyone in your household kicks up a fuss about the skins, just make them peel all those potatoes for you 😜
I make this dum aloo with different kinds of pooris - palak poori, beetroot poori, bhatura and most often than not, plain pooris. These two dishes are a bit hit in my household.
I hope you try this combination and enjoy it as much as I enjoy making and eating it 😋
