I'm counting the seconds until the start of the long weekend here - Monday is a holiday. Two things have put a damper to the general excitement in the air. My Cannes trip got postponed and the weather forecast did a u-turn upsetting countryside picnic arrangements. Oh well, at least there's always Indian food. I settled on a wonderful and simple recipe using fenugreek leaves. Fenugreek is used as fresh/frozen leaves, dried leaves (kasoori methi) and as whole seeds in Indian cooking. The leaves are bitter, but they are often used with potatoes or carrots to balance out the taste. My simple aloo methi curry recipe is steeped in creamy yoghurt, which cuts through the bitterness of the leaves for an altogether more balanced taste.
Take the yoghurt out of the fridge and bring it to room temperature. Grind the onion, whole spices, ginger, chillies and coriander to a smooth paste in a hand blender or food processor. If you don’t have one, just finely chop the onion, chillies and ginger.
Heat the oil and fry the above ingredients for 10 minutes until the green mixture turns a deeper shade and doesn’t smell raw. You may need to keep adding water to prevent the mixture for sticking to the pan.
Chuck in the potatoes, and fry on a high heat until translucent. Add in the yoghurt, a cup of water and cook covered on a medium heat until you can insert a fork into a piece of potato with some difficulty.
Next stir in the methi / fenugreek leaves and cook covered on a medium flame until the potatoes are cooked. This takes a good 20 minutes, so keep stirring gently to prevent the curry from sticking to the bottom of the pan. You could always add parboiled potatoes, but they don’t taste as steeped in the spices.
Finally stir in the butter, simmer for five minutes and enjoy Aloo Methi Curry.
Leave a Reply