Bengali Aloo Dum - For the Love of Aloo
There could not be a more appropriate way to start off my long pending food blog. While Peruvians and Bolivians may have initially domesticated the potato, the actual credit of uplifting this simple, storage friendly, easy to cook vegetable to a whole new level must go to Bengalis.
Chef Abhishek and me had always discussed that we need to do something with out aligned interests in food. When I was stuck in my New Delhi apartment during the quarantine, Amber and Mehal asked me about the recipe for the Bengali Aloo Dum. I thought this was probably the best opportunity for me to get started. For non-Indian readers, “aloo” is the Bengali/Hindi word for potatoes and “dum” means cooking under pressure. Aloo Dum is a spicy dish made of potatoes in a gravy of onion and tomato puree with a lot of spices.
While there are a host of Youtube videos and guides available on the internet, I have always found the recipes of Bong Mom’s CookBook (http://www.bongcookbook.com/) to be extremely easy to follow when I started cooking. Chef Abhishek had introduced me to the eponymous book by featured on Bong Mom’s CookBook.
To me the most exciting feature of the Indian kitchen is that we do not measure the ingredients out but rather eyeball it. The recipes, cooking time and cooking temperature allow for a wide margin for rectification of minor mistakes and each dish has a wide latitude of acceptable taste. Don’t worry if you over do or under do an ingredient (except for strong spices like nutmeg etc.).
The Bengali Aloo Dum is a fairly simple dish to cook and needs very little preparation. While traditionally it has been prepared using baby potatoes, it is equally amenable to the regular potatoes. One has to be a bit cautious in not over boiling the regular potatoes. Since the potatoes first need to boiled and then again cooked with the spices, care should be taken to boil them only to the extent that they still remain firm but can easily be penetrated using a fork.
While cooking my version of Aloo Dum, I have borrowed ideas from both Bong Mom’s CookBook (http://www.bongcookbook.com/2007/07/phulko-luchi-ar-aloor-dom.html) and Bong Eats (https://www.bongeats.com/recipe/niramish-aloo-dum)
This version does not use any garlic. There is a regular version that uses garlic, but lets keep that for some other time.
I will list down the ingredients that is needed to prepare the dish with 500g of baby potatoes. If you want to cook a larger volume, you can scale up the ingredients accordingly.
Ingredients
Primary Ingredient
Baby potatoes (not peeled) - 500 gm - Around 10 - 15 small ones (2 - 3 cm in diameter)
If you are not sure about the size of baby potatoes, have a look at the image below.
When you can’t select your potatoes, trust Caesar to guide you. The potato on the left is sitting inside a tablespoon while the one on the right and being pointed at by Caesar is sitting on a teaspoon. So now you have an idea of the size range of baby potatoes. If you are using regular ones, make sure you cut them to fit this size range.
Ingredients for Tempering
Bay leaves/ Tej Pata - 2 medium ones (4 - 6 cm long)
Asafoetida/ Hing - 1/2 tea spoon
Ingredient for the Gravy/ Curry
Onion Paste ~ From one medium onion
Tomatoes ~ 1 small/ medium tomato with the seeds and watery core removed and finely chopped (you can make it into a paste if you like). I personally keep the seeds as they are full of nutrients.
Jeera Powder/ Cumin powder ~ 1 teaspoon (You can try 1 and a half teaspoon if you want a stronger flavour)
Garam Masala Powder/ All Spice Powder ~ ½ teaspoon
Ginger paste ~ 1 tea spoon
Red Chilli Powder ~ ½ teaspoon (can also be substituted with paste of dry red chillies - 2 to 4 medium dry red chillies)
Yogurt - 2 teaspoon
Salt - As per taste
Sugar ~ Optional
Blanched Peas - Optional
Oil - Mustard oil is preferred. However, if you find it too strong or pungent, you can use any vegetable oil.
Ingredients for garnishing (Optional)
Freshly chopped Coriander leaves
If you plan to use the fresh coriander leaves for garnishing, make sure to wash them under fresh water to get off all the dirt and keep them soaked in a bowl of water with a little bit of vinegar to get rid of all the germs as the leaves will go in raw on the dish.
Step 1 - Boil the Potatoes
We start off by boiling the baby potatoes with their skins on in salt water. You can boil them in a pressure cooker (2 whistles) or in a regular pot. Do add ample salt in the water when you boil the potatoes. Since we will be also cooking the boiled potatoes for some duration in the curry, please be careful so as not to over boil the potatoes i.e. the boiled potatoes should remain intact and firm but should be easily penetrable by a fork.
Once the boiling is done, run them under a tap of cold water and immediately peel them. At this point, using a fork, you can make some make some holes in the peeled potatoes to allow the spices to seep in while cooking. But be careful so as not to break/squish the potatoes.
Optional Step - Fry the Boiled Potatoes
This is an optional step. In a wok or a pan, you can heat some oil along with few crystals of sugar and fry the boiled potatoes on medium heat. I don’t fry when I am using baby potatoes, but I do fry the regular ones in case I am preparing the dish using regular potatoes. Fry them till they turn uniformly yellow and starts browning slightly. Once done, you can keep them aside.
Step 2 - Get the Spices Ready
Using one medium onion (can also use a large one), make onion paste. A bit of extra onion in the gravy has never harmed anyone.
Also make around 1 teaspoon of ginger paste. If you love to make the dish spicier, feel free to add some green chillies to your ginger paste. In case you do not like to use dry red chilly powder, you can soak some dry whole red chillies in warm water and make a paste of the same along with the ginger.
Beat up around 2 tea spoons of yogurt so that there are no lumps. Adding yogurt is optional. I skip it at times when I want my curry to be darker in colour and spicier.
Step 3 - Lets Get Going
Based on your volume of onion and tomato paste, heat some oil in the pan. Once the oil is hot, add the Bay Leaves. When you can smell their fragrance, add the Asafoetida (or Hing). Stir it around for around 10 to 15 seconds on low heat. Next add the onion paste and mix it with the hot oil. (Optional Step - You can sprinkle a pinch of sugar on the onion). Fry the onion on low head till its start to brown.
At this point add the chopped tomato (or the pulp if you prefer it in pulp form). Saute it well in low heat till it mixed with the browned onion. At this stage add the ginger + green chilly + red chilly paste. Or just the ginger paste if you are using red chilly powder. Stir. Once the ginger paste is well mixed, add the red chilly power (skip this if you have made a paste of red chillies along with ginger), cumin powder and garam masala powder after mixing the same with the yogurt (you can add 1 or 2 teaspoons of warm water to the yogurt to make the mixing easier). You can also add 1 teaspoon of Kashmiri Mirch or Degi Mirch powder, if you prefer your curry to be of a richer colour. If you are not planning to use the yogurt, you can add the spices directly. The yogurt is a handy item to keep at hand though. It can help you in controlling the color of the curry and also in reducing the spiciness if your dish tastes too hot/spicy.
Fry for 3-4 minutes at the lowest possible heat with regular stirring. Continue frying till the oil starts separating from the spices. This is a tricky step and you need to keep watching as else the spices may get overcooked/ burnt.
Once you see the oil separating, add the potatoes and stir slowly so that they get coated with the spice mix evenly. Let them cook along with spices for some time (2-4 minutes). Keep stirring regularly. Once you feel that the potatoes/ spices are beginning to stick to the bottom of the pan, sprinkle some salt as per your taste and add a bit of warm water and stir them again. I usually add water in batches of 1/4th of a cup.
Keep adding warm water in stages for a few times so that the total cooking time is around 30 minutes for the potatoes in the spices. if you want to add peas to your aloo dum, blanch the peas and add them before the last 5 minutes of the cooking time. In the final step, allow the gravy to dry and stick to the potatoes.
You can now turn off the stove, sprinkle some chopped coriander leaves and cover the pan. This can be had with freshly baked Indian bread, varieties of pulao or if you want to really go for the best possible combination, you can try these with luchi.
The finished product (without the garnishing of chopped coriander leaves)