Simple Potato Curry

Puris and potato curry for a Sunday brunch, for a train journey, as a friend drops by – it is the simplest and the best.

I am yet to find a pantry that doesn’t store potatoes. With around five thousand varieties, you get them in any part of the World. Imagine a World where there were no potatoes? Well, ask the Irish about the Potato Famine.

Cultivated some 7000 years ago in Peru, they are the quintessential food for many countries. Do you know in some of the old U.S stealth submarines, all they could store were potatoes and the soldiers ate them day after day, night after night which kept them alive.

It is only after moving to U.S, I knew people just eat them as main meal, the baked potato dish. The very first day in U.S, someone at the table ordered potato skins and I was like, Whaaat?? I just pick them up at the grocery like onions without even thinking and put them in everything. And finally when they are too many, I make the ever simple, ever delicious potato curry.

Peel and dice them small like this. 2 cups

3 green chilies
Curry leaves – 1 sprig
Onions diced thin – 2 tsp
Turmeric powder -/12 tsp.
Salt
Peas cooked (2 tbsp) – optional

Heat 2 tsp oil, splutter ½ tsp mustard seeds, add the curry leaves, diced green chilies and onion and sauté well. Then add the potatoes, add ½ tsp turmeric powder and add 1 cup of water and cook in low flame. When almost cooked, add the cooked peas. Add salt to adjust taste.

When cooked, mash them lightly if you like it that way.

Serve with puris.