I’m not sure if there’s a rule against re-posting old recipes. But I decided that in service of sharing delicious things to eat with you, I should repost my recipe for Skillet Potatoes in Mojo De Ajo (Garlic Oil) from 2009.

Mojo De Ajo means Garlic Oil but it also translates into Garlicky Tangy Oil That You Will Want to Lick From Your Fingers.

In case it’s still unclear, the magic of this recipe is in the Mojo De Ajo. Essentially, you cook a few cloves of minced garlic just until soft – not browned – in a 1/4 cup of olive oil. Then stir in lime juice and salt.

Then, you drizzle it on everything. Potatoes are a great start but broccoli works just as well. I could see putting it on tofu or even serving up some extra (This is crazy. There’s not going to be any extra. That is the whole point.) with a loaf of crusty bread to dip into it.

Find a vehicle for it. I have faith in you.

Skip straight to the recipe

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We’ve been spending our weekends since August on Shelter Island – which means room for Surya to run and play in between “beach time” and “pool time” (and occasionally “ice cream time”). A few times, I’ve carefully toted my masala dabba along with me  to cook Indian food. Cooking in someone else’s kitchen – especially cooking “speciality” food, in someone else’s kitchen is hard. It meant blending tomatoes for paneer makhani in a smoothie blender and changing courses on certain recipes. I had planned to make a whole spiced potato recipe from Suvir Saran’s Indian Home Cooking, but then realized I left my cookbook back in Brooklyn and didn’t have whole spices handy. I had, however, thrown a pack of Panch Phoron in with my kitchen gear and a blend of spices which I wanted to use for making Til Aloo from Indian Food Rocks.

Panch Phoron is a traditional Bengali five spice blend combining nigella seeds, black mustard seeds, fenugreek seeds, fennel seeds and cumin seeds. Each bite is a crunchy mix of whole spices. A little spicy, a little bitter – and in this case, a little nutty and peppery from the sesame seeds and crushed red chili flakes that I threw in.

It was late, I wasn’t in my kitchen and I was missing a few ingredients here and there – the result though was tender nuggets of potatoes coated in crunchy whole spices and generous flecks of sea salt.

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When I get an idea in my head, it’s hard to get it out.  The first is that when I saw these bowls in Crate and Barrel, I knew I needed to make a soup worthy of eating from them.  The second is that when I heard New York was getting 7 to 12 inches of snow tonight, my family needed to eat soup.  Something hearty.  Something creamy.  Something that wouldn’t make me feel like I needed to go out and buy new pants tomorrow.

Baked potato soup.  Bowl worthy?  Check.  Hearty?  Check.  Creamy?  Check.  No new pants required?  Check.  I think.

Baked Potato Soup

Makes ~6 servings

I adapted this soup from this recipe on All Recipes, but I omitted much of the butter, all of the half and half cream and the cheddar cheese.  Amazingly, the soup was still very rich and creamy.  

Ingredients:

4 medium potatoes
2 tablespoons butter or olivio
Olive oil
1 yellow onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, diced
1 green chili, diced
1/2 cup broccoli, chopped into florets without stem
1/2 cup all purpose flour
4 cups milk
1 cup vegetable broth

1. Poke holes in the potatoes, wrap them in a paper towel and microwave for about 10 minutes until soft.  Allow to cool.

2. Put the butter/olivio in a stock pot on medium heat.  Add a generous swirl of olive oil.  Add the onions and garlic and cook for about 5 minutes until glassy.

3. Add the green chili and cook for another 2-3 minutes.

4. Stir in the flour and cook for thirty seconds to a minute.

5. Slowly whisk in the milk and then the vegetable broth.  Continue cooking on medium low, stirring occassionally to make sure the bottom doesn’t burn.  The soup will start to thicken.

6. In a separate skillet, saute the broccoli in olive oil until browned.

7. Cut the potatoes in half.  Use a spoon to scoop out the flesh.

8. Add the potatoes (in chunks) and the broccoli to the pot.  Continue cooking on medium low for another 8-10 minutes.

9. Season with salt, black pepper and cayenne pepper to taste.  I used 2 teaspoons salt, a sprinkle of black pepper and 1/4 teaspoon of cayenne, and my soup had a nice kick to it.

For the first thirty something years of his life, my brother pretended like he didn’t eat mustard seeds.  My family is South Indian and mustard seeds are a main ingredient of the tempering which is a base for most South Indian foods.  What this means is that for thirty something years, my mom and dad had to make special portions for my brother.  He didn’t eat mustard seeds.  He didn’t eat spicy food.  Not that long ago, he confided to me that he had made it up (something tells me that things which someone confides to you should never be the subject of a public post).

So they would make two of everything.  Or alter age old recipes.  Neither of which seems ideal to me.  It’s hard enough to find time to cook dinner.  I don’t think I can find time to cook dinner twice.

My third spice to introduce Surya to was garam masala.  The story of garam masala goes something like this in our kitchen:

Rajat: Should we add garam masala?

Me: You don’t put garam masala in that.

Rajat: Are you sure?  You’re not supposed to even put a little in it?

Me: No.  No garam masala.  Don’t add any.  It doesn’t need garam masala.

So of course she had to love it.  And she did.  She gobbled this down with a little dollop of creamy yogurt.  A true little desi baby.  If I had made more of this, I would have taken a bowl for myself, added a little salt and a pinch more garam masala and joined her.

First Potato Curry

4-5 medium tender white potatoes or Russet potatoes
1 small tomato, diced (about 1/4 cup chopped)
Sprinkle of garam masala

Peel the potatoes and finely dice them.  Dice the tomato.  In a wide skillet, heat about a teaspoon of cooking oil.  Add the potatoes and cook, covered partially about 10 minutes until tender.  Add the tomatoes and cook for another 3-4 minutes until the tomatoes wilt.  Sprinkle with garam masala.  Puree in a food processor or using a hand blender or food mill.  Potatoes can become gluey if you puree too much so a quick whir is sufficient.

This First Potato Curry freezes well in the ice cube method and mixes well with Peas with Cumin and Coriander.

Thanks to everyone for the encouragement to keep posting baby food recipes on Hungry Desi.  There’ll still be lots of big people food here of course…but baby food too, which the big people will want to share with the babies!

QUICK is king in my kitchen ever since Surya’s arrival in our life.  Some friends have been asking me how I’ve been managing to cook and blog.  The answer is that I steal little snippets of time between naps and during Daddy time.  Whether it’s cooking, taking pictures or writing up posts, I do it because otherwise there’s extra energy that builds up inside of me.  If I don’t cook, I start to feel a little edgy.  It makes me restless.  I guess you could say cooking keeps me in a good mood.  I also do it because it’s important to me that we have something FRESH on the table at least every other night (note: that’s a goal – not an always reality). Plus, what I do is nothing compared to the amazing feats that go on over at Smitten Kitchen.

So, on Monday I picked up a few items that I knew could (and hopefully would) get used up during the week – something green (spinach and kale), something starchy (soft baby yukon potatoes), a red bellpepper (haven’t used it yet but will scramble it with an egg over the weekend), mushrooms, a package of tofu, coconut milk, frozen peas (I can never have too many peas in the freezer!), canned tomatoes – you get the picture.

I also happened to buy a bag of CASHEWS.  Ever since I saw this recipe over at The Kitchn for Cashew Tomato Soup, I’ve been obsessed with using cashews to RICHEN up dishes and to add CRUNCH.  I still have plenty of cashews leftover (it’s amazing how a few cashews go a long way).  Any suggestions for what to use my leftover cashews for? That soup is still on my list.

Earlier in the week, I made an easy red curry using Thai Kitchen Red Curry Paste, kale, potatoes, carrots, mushrooms, peas and tofu and threw a handful of cashews into the curry sauce.

The cashews softened up slightly so the result was a CHEWY CRUNCH in each bite.

Then on Wednesday, without having found much free time on my hands during the day, I realized it was already 7:30 in the evening and I had made no move towards dinner.  So, I decided to make up a quick, dry ALOO SAAG.  Easy enough.  But boring.  Nothing very sexy to it.  And that’s when I remembered the cashews.

Rajat was a little skeptical when he saw me powdering up the cashews.

“What’s that for”, he casually asked.

Translation (maybe. in my head at least.): “What on earth are you going to do with those?”

“Oh, it’s for the Aloo Saag.  For some creaminess.  And crunchiness.” (Said with a certain amount of duh-factor in my voice as though I had had it this way a million times before.)

“Oh.  Okay.”

Translation (maybe. in my head at least.): “What’s our back up?”

But in the end, he agreed. The cashews were a big success.

My mom has had me on a strict “baby friendly” diet ever since Surya arrived.  There’s a whole laundry list of foods that should apparently be avoided while nursing.  The list is in part derived from the internet and by way of word of mouth from my aunties in India.  I’m just thankful to have my mom cooking for me so I haven’t really complained much.  Plus, Rajat and I are a big fan of whatever might help keep Surya calm during the night.

Potatoes sadly made their way onto her list of no-no’s.  So please, for me, have these skillet potatoes with mojo de ajo this weekend.

For the last few months, I’ve been doing two new things. One, I’ve been eating breakfast at home.  <Baby, you’re welcome.>  Two, I’ve been reading cookbooks and cooking magazines while I eat breakfast.  An odd way to start off the day?  Maybe.  For some.  But I love it.  It helps me brainstorm ideas for dinner.  Although I’ve been told that it’s abnormal to think about dinner before 10 am.  I find this hard to believe.  What time do ‘normal’ people start thinking about dinner?  I am almost always thinking about dinner.  Or lunch.

Martha Stewart Living from June 2009 kept finding its way into my breakfast reading rotation.  And I kept going off to work salivating over Martha’s description of mojo de ajo, a garlic oil sauce with lime juice and hot pepper.  Martha’s recipe is for making mojo de ajo to top off chicken fajitas.  I contemplated concocting vegetarian fajitas with mojo de ajo but honestly I’m too lazy for fajitas.  The at-the-table-self-assembly process is too much for me.

So, I made a batch of mojo de ajo and drizzled a generous amount over potatoes that had been cooked until they were melt-in-your-mouth soft with green bellpeppers and onions for an earthy balance.  Be forewarned – mojo de ajo’s garlicky-lime-chili pepper kick is addictive.

This soup really hit the spot.  Not to mention, it dirtied one pot and my blender and was ready in about fifteen minutes.  Really, I’m all for shortcuts but is that any more effort than opening a can of soup and heating it up?

Cracked.  Wheat.  Porridge.  Nothing about that sounds good to me.  Cracked wheat porridge with vegetables.  Melt in your mouth potatoes.  Sweet peas and carrots.  And spices.  And creamy yogurt.  Served piping hot.  It starts to sound better, no?  Cracked wheat is made by cracking whole raw wheat berries.  This means that it’s high in fiber and a whole host of other nutrients in addition to having a mild, nutty and comforting flavor.

Dalia is a common Indian breakfast dish of cracked wheat usually made with peas, carrots and potatoes.  Its healthy, savoury and hearty.  Mixed in with a cup of low fat yogurt it even becomes creamy.  What’s better than something wickedly healthy sounding that packs loads of good taste (yes, I said wicked…I know, since when did I become Canadian?  This cracked wheat just has me that excited.)?

I think dalia seems like it would taste great with couscous or corn grits as well. If you give either of those a try, let me know how it turns out.  Rajat wasn’t up for the adventure this time around, but next time around I think I’ll give it a shot.

It’s been a little over 2 weeks since I’ve blogged!  I was a poor planner and didn’t have any posts in reserve for sharing with you while I was away tending to our move.  But now that we’re moved and semi-settled in with only a few more boxes to go, I’m free to cook again!  Here’s a post that I started working on before the move for a recipe that I’m really excited to share because it’s become a part of our regular rotation.

I rarely buy cookbooks.  I think I own a total of 8.  2 were gifts, 1 is my dad’s passed down to him from my maternal grandmother, 1 I “borrowed” from my mother-in-law and 3 I actually bought.  With the advent of cooking blogs, I’m not sure that this part of me will change anytime soon.  This recipe, however, is inspired by Suvir Saran’s recipe for Cauliflower Hyderabad Style in his cookbook Indian Home Cooking, and it’s the reason I bought his book.  I read his cauliflower recipe sitting on the floor of Barnes & Noble and knew I needed to make it immediately that night.  That’s powerful.  And it didn’t disappoint.  So far, we’ve tried three or four recipes from Indian Home Cooking and have been satisfied by them all.  A few of the recipes are for things I grew up eating at home and already regulars in my kitchen, but more than a few are interesting and new (and hey, the title is Indian Home Cooking afterall so I was expecting a few of the regulars).  

Yesterday on Everyday Food Radio, host Sandy Gluck was talking about sweet versus savoury french toast.  I shared with her listeners a recipe for Rajat’s Desi Style French Toast, a spicy, savoury french toast served with ketchup and chutney (no syrup here folks).  Of course, I was a bit of a bad wife because I entirely forgot to mention that the recipe I was sharing was actually Rajat’s!  Fortunately, he’s a nice husband without much pride of cookery-ship and has agreed to accept rajma for Sunday night dinner in return for my omission.  Which I guess brings truth to the old cliche that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.

I had raved back then in that post about Aloo Chaat Style (Breakfast) Potatoes.  Somehow though I never got around to sharing this simple recipe.  If you google Aloo Chaat, you will likely land on this wikipedia entry, which is not what “Aloo Chaat Style” refers to.  Aloo Chaat is a popular Indian snack usually made with potatoes, chaat masala, chutneys and sometimes tomatoes and onions.  This recipe draws on the tangy meets starch combo taste that makes aloo chaat so popular for simple breakfast potatoes.  

If a spice can bring to mind a season, Chaat Masala makes me think of spring.  It’s light and tart with tang, crisp and flavorful.  It smacks your mouth and tongue with a sour punch.  Two other Indian spices that pack a similar flavor are amchur powder (dried mango powder) and kala namak (black salt).  Chaat Masala is a mix of both of these plus alot of other sour and heat packed spices like cumin, black pepper, pomegranite seeds, coriander, mint leaves, ginger, chili and cloves.  All combined together and then highlighted with a splash of lime juice, they deliver a taste that brings to mind Lik-m-Aid Fun Dip (remember those?!) or sour gum balls.  You can find Chaat Masala at any Indian grocery store, and MDH and Badshah are reliable brands.

We sprinkle chaat masala on oranges and other fruits for a quick, salty-sweet snack and also mix in a teaspoon with whisked yogurt for raita. What are your chaat masala favorites?