Recipe of the month: Palak Poori and Dum Aloo

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 😋

Palak Poori and Dum Aloo

Preparation time: 45 min

Serves: 4

Recipe category: Side dish/North-Indian
Recipe level: Easy

Recipe source: Adapted from here

Ingredients:

For Palak Poori:

2 cups whole wheat flour (I use Pillsbury chakki atta)
2 tbsp semolina (chiroti rava or fine rava) Optional but recommended
250 gram Indian spinach/palak 

2 tbsp oil
Salt to taste
1/2 tsp caster sugar
Water as needed
Oil for deep frying

For Dum Aloo:
15 to 20 baby potatoes

2 cups roughly chopped ripe tomatoes
4 cloves of garlic, chopped

25 mm. (1") piece of ginger, chopped

5-6 whole dry red chillies (I use a combination of guntur & byadgi chillies for a mix of spice & color)

2 tbsp broken cashew nuts 

1 tsp cumin seeds 

1 tsp fennel seeds *mandatory ingredient

1-1/2 cups water 

4 nos. cardamom pods, seeds crushed

1 tbsp roasted dried fenugreek leaves (kasuri methi)

1 tbsp honey

1/4 cup fresh cream

1 tbsp chopped coriander 

Salt to taste
2 tsp ghee (clarified butter)
Oil for deep frying

Method:

For the Palak Poori:

1. Remove the stems from the palak and wash well. Immerse into a pot of simmering water with a big pinch of sugar. Blanch the palak for 2 minutes, remove from the hot water and immediately plunge into a bowl of cold water to stop the cooking process. Now place the blanched palak in a blender and blend till smooth (without adding any additional water). 

2. In a large bowl, add the wheat flour, semolina, salt, sugar, palak puree and oil. Make a well in the middle and gradually sprinkle water if required while kneading continuously to form a uniform dough. The poori dough should be firmer than chapati/roti dough (if you make it too soft, they soak up lot of oil and if you make it too hard, you get broken sides).

3. After kneading, keep the dough aside for 10 mins. You can start making them immediately if you are pressed for time. Make lime sized balls and start rolling out the pooris by smearing a little oil to prevent sticking (try not to use flour) into a small circle of uniform thickness (not too thick - not too thin) and spread them out on a laminated sheet or parchment paper. If you have a poori press then all the better. Do not stack the rolled out pooris on top of one another.

4. Heat oil in a pan/kadai. The oil should be the right temperature to get perfect pooris. Cut a tiny bit of the dough and put it in oil. If it raises to top immediately, your oil is ready and you can start frying your pooris. If smoke is coming out of oil, then that means it is too hot and not suitable for frying.

5. Gently drop the rolled out pooris (one by one) in the hot oil. They should fluff up if done properly. 

6. Give them a flip over and drain them on absorbent paper towels.

For Dum Aloo:

1. Wash and dry the baby potatoes. Pierce each potato all around with a fork and deep fry in hot oil, with the skin on, till the potatoes are cooked. Preferably the potatoes should all be of similar size so they cook uniformly. Drain on absorbent paper and keep aside.

If you have the patience and time, you can heat a little oil, add a generous pinch of salt, turmeric powder and chilli powder and fry these potatoes just for a few minutes to infuse some flavour into them. 

This step is completely optional. 

2. Heat a little ghee in a skillet and fry the cumin seeds and fennel seeds until they begin to sizzle. At this point, your kitchen is filled with a wonderful liquorice-like aroma. 

3. Now add in the cashew nuts and fry for a few minutes until golden. 

4. Add in the garlic, ginger and dry red chillies and fry for a few minutes. 

5. Mix in the tomatoes and simmer over a medium flame till the tomatoes are soft and mushy. Cool the mixture and purée in a blender to make a smooth and fine paste.

6. Heat a butter along with a little oil in a pan, add the crushed cardamom and saute for a few seconds.

7. Now add the gravy paste and allow it to come to a boil. Simmer till the oil separates from the gravy.

8.  Add the fried potatoes, kasuri methi, honey and salt and stir until the potatoes are nicely coated in the gravy.

9. Add 1-1/2 cups of water, bring to a boil and simmer till the right consistency of the curry is reached. Add fresh cream and garnish with coriander leaves if desired. 

5. Just before serving add a little more fresh cream and serve hot with pooris. 

Notes:

• While making pooris, make sure the pooris turn a nice golden brown. This prevents them from collapsing faster.
• If you roll out the pooris too thin, you might end up with minute holes which on frying, prevents the pooris from fluffing up
• The fine semolina or chiroti rava makes the pooris slightly crisp. You can omit this if you don't have any.  
• If you do not have baby potatoes, you can use regular potatoes too. Just wash and peel the potatoes, cut them into large chunks and proceed with the recipe. 
• You can use the same oil that you use to fry the pooris to fry the potatoes. If you notice that the oil is smoking, as far as possible avoid reusing the same oil for subsequent frying.
• If you have a wooden rolling board, cleaning it is a bit of a pain. Take some flour and dust the board before washing. This helps to remove some of the traces of oil. After that, wash 2-3 times with hot soapy water.
• For the dum aloo, choose tomatoes that are relatively ripe otherwise the tomatoes may turn the gravy too sour. In case this happens, balance out the taste with cream and sugar/honey. If the tomatoes aren't sour at all you may add in 1 tbsp of thick tomato paste. 

Cheers,

Megha