All About Aloo...

There was a time when I had started a blog called AlooWorld. And my profile name was Aloo Girl. Yup, that crazy about potatoes. But that was long ago... no posts saw the light of day and the blog died a silent death.

But my love for potatoes did not die, nuh-huh! In fact, as a kid there was no other vegetable I would deign to eat except potato and the occasional okra/lady's finger. I was the 'annoyingly thin, scrawny kid who is so fussy an eater that the neighbours think her parents starve her'!

So there was this time my mom had had enough of making potatoes every other day for me and my brother. And she came up with a super-evil plan! She decided to cook potatoes for lunch, dinner and every meal in between for an entire week till both me and my brother had aloo coming out of every pore in our bodies (Yeuwwww! Ok that line was soooo not good for active imagination like mine! Now I can visualize mashed potatoes coming out of every orifice, reminiscent of slimy, gross horror movie scenes! Yuck!)

Ok, ok, back to nice, appetizing aloo thoughts.... (frantically waving my hands on top of my head ala Phoebe to clear my head and dispel the disturbing images). So anyway, what eventually happened was that me and R happily wolfed down every aloo meal with no sign of nausea, stomach ache, boredom or any other classic kid bahaana and poor mom had to concede defeat. That's how much I love potatoes!

While Aloo Bhaja/Bangaladumpa Vepudu or simple fried potatoes with salt and chilli powder is an all time favorite, Aloo Bharta is the other potato dish that is reminscent of my childhood and growing up years in Bhubaneshwar. While every household has it's own version of Aloo Fry, I'm pretty sure that very few people would have heard of this no-cook Aloo Bharta or Indian Mashed Potatoes(!). Its totally fuss-free and if you have boiled or baked potatoes handy, even a kid can make it in a jiffy.

Ingredients:

Potatoes - 2 large

Onion - 1 small

Green Chillies - 2

Salt

Mustard Oil - 1 tbsp

Fresh Coriander - for garnish

Peel and boil the potaoes till soft. Dice the onion and chillies finely. Once the potatoes cool, mash them with ur hands, add the onions, green chillies, mustard oil and salt and mix well.

The way I like it:

You can also add some crushed black pepper or a dried red chilli fried in some hing(asafoetida) and mustard oil for some spice. Garnish with some fresh coriander leaves. But trust me, this deceptively simple mashed potato recipe is as yummy as it gets even without these additions. It goes fantastically with some traditional Oriya Pakhala and fish fry or jus plain rice and dal.