Eggs n’ Potatoes Curry

It’s been raining potatoes here in the blogosphere lately. That is because 2008 is the International Year of Potato. Wow, a whole year devoted to the spuds! Recently Sra wrote that she has used up all her potato memories, but she did have enough memories to fill about a dozen posts… That got me thinking about my relationship with the spud, and I realized that sadly I may not even have enough memories to fill one post!

Growing up, potatoes were these large ugly cubes in sambar with the weird texture and no specific taste that I struggled to avoid getting on to my plate. The rule in my house was, if it is on the table, it gets in your plate and if it is in your plate, you eat it. So as much as I hated sambar then, I had to have it, only thing I could do was to try and stop the potato and eggplant pieces from landing on my plate. The only other potato dish I remember from back then is something which was simply known as “masala” as in Poori-Masala.  Rolled inside a hot poori, the masala was quite bearable, I think I might have even liked it a bit. I am sue there were plenty of other dishes, like stews and cutlets where potatoes were used, but I don’t think I really cared. As long as the pieces were small enough, I wouldn’t even sense their presence.

But everything changed after I was introduced to a wonder called Finger Chips some time during my college days. Finger Chips is what we called French Fries in India. I was totally addicted to the deep fried goodness from the first bite. And after coming here, there are all types of potato goodness that I have grown to love – french fries, mashed potatoes and hash browns to name a few. I also learned to add potatoes to my meat dishes and started making baked potatoes and potato wedges as quick sides. I love potatoes now, even the large pieces in sambar are okay!

Wow, I somehow managed to fill a post with enough potato memories, who knew I had all these untapped memories inside me… Anyway, this egg and potato curry is a classic Kerala dish, that we used to have with appams at home, and I am pretty sure my mom cut the potatoes into really tiny pieces, because I remember this dish, but don’t remember the potatoes!

Ingredients

• 4 large hard-boiled eggs
• 2 medium sized potatoes skinned and cubed
• 1/4 cup thinly sliced shallots
• 1 tsp thinly sliced ginger pieces
• 1 tsp garlic pieces
• 2 small green chilies slit
• 1/2 tsp red chilli powder
• 1 tbsp coriander powder
• 1/4 tsp cumin powder
• 1/4 tsp turmeric powder
• 1/4 tsp black pepper powder
• 1/4 tsp freshly ground garam masala (cardamom + fennel seeds + cloves + cinnamon)
• 3/4 cup coconut milk
• 1 tsp vinegar
• 1 tbsp oil
• salt to taste

Method

Heat oil, and add the shallots, green chilies, ginger and garlic pieces and saute till the shallots start to brown.

Mix the red chili, coriander, cumin, turmeric and black pepper powders with a little water to make a paste. Add the paste to the pan, and fry on medium heat till the spices are aromatic and oil starts to separate.

Add the potatoes and mix well. add 1 cup of water and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium and add the coconut milk and vinegar. Cook covered till the potatoes are soft. Add the garam masala and salt and mix well.

Cut the eggs in half, or make large slits on the eggs, and place them in the gravy. Make sure the eggs are completely immersed in the gravy, use a spoon to pour some over the eggs. Simmer for a couple of minutes and remove from the heat.

Serve hot with appams (hoppers) or idiyappams (string hoppers). This goes well with chapattis and rice too.

This is my entry for two events celebrating the year of the spuds:

Ode to Potato hosted by Sia

and

A Potato Fe(a)st hosted by Dhivya

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Category: Eggs, India - Kerala, Potato, Side Dish - Gravy