Cooking With Ethics: Potato Curry, Raita, and Naan: An Indian Feast.

It has been ridiculously snowy this week, and I thought that it was prime time for some heat in the kitchen. And while, in retrospect, it would have been a smarter idea to turn the oven on, we made some pretty awesome potato curry. This recipe was from Practical Cooking: Vegetarian, my favorite cook book because of all the different interesting recipes it contains. From Thai Noodles to Veggie Wellington, these recipes are seriously amazing. I'll make sure try new ones, but I'll definitely give credit where it's due! So potato curry came from this cook book, the Raita recipe came from All Recipes, and we bought some Naan at the store.

The Raita is really creamy and kind of cleanses the palate between bites of the thick, spicy potato curry. If you don't like too much spice, just leave out some of the pepper.

Potato Curry and Raita with Naan

Like all the best dishes, start out with some potatoes.

Three to be exact.

Two Onions

For some reason, the cats LOVE smashing my groceries.

Three giant cloves of garlic, crushed

Four tomatoes...

1 cup Cauliflower florets

2 tablespoons cilantro
... and also 3/4 cup peas. I used canned.

Cut the Onion into quarters.

Crush the garlic

Cut the potatoes into equal pieces. Next time I make this, I will definitely cut these into smaller pieces. Like half the size of these. It took forever to cook... and I even nuked them in the microwave first!

Peel the tomatoes. I thought this step was ridiculous... but the result was great and apparently I'm pretty good at peeling tomatoes. I'm still toying with the idea of using stewed tomatoes next time.

Next, cut the tomatoes into quarters.

Now heat some vegetable oil in a large, heavy-based saucepan or skillet. I used my trusty, not-so-rusty-anymore cast iron skillet.

Add the potatoes, onions, and crushed garlic, and fry, stirring frequently, over low heat for a couple minutes.
Add 1/2 tsp. turmeric
1/2 tsp. ground cumin
1/2 tsp. ground coriander
1 tsp. garam masala
1 tsp. ginger
Chilies... the recipe recommends 1 fresh chili but I used 3 dried ones.
But I really like spice.

The first on the left is garam masala, next is coriander, then cumin. The little container is ginger, then turmeric, and finally, a giant container of chillies.

Mmmmmmhhh...
Now fry for about a minute at low heat, stirring constantly.
Next add the cauliflower florets, tomatoes, peas, 2 tablespoons chopped cilantro, and 1 and 1/4 cups stock (I just used water).

Cook this on a low heat for 30-40 minutes or until potatoes are cooked all the way through and but still tender.

This is gonna take a loooong time. Now it's time to make the Raita.

I kind of changed the recipe from allrecipes.com to suit my liking.

start out with 2 cucumbers, and seed and chop them.

Don't worry. I was being very careful and I moved my hand right after the picture.
Next, seed and dice one tomato.

My peeler is pretty awesome.
Now add about 2 cloves of garlic, minced.

And add 2 cups of unsweetened yogurt and 1 tsp. cumin

Add salt and pepper to taste. Done with that!

This is taking forever.
Seriously, next time I will make smaller pieces.

It's so close to being done... I also made rice to go along with this meal, as you can see...

It's done!

It smelled so good!!!
Now I heated up the naan over the stove in a skillet so it was nice and pliable.

And serve the curry with cilantro as a garnish (or pretty much all over it) with some Raita and rice on the side with naan! I wish we had more.