Potato Sukke

This is a wonderful potato preparation from our Saraswat menu.  Mildly spiced with a bit of tanginess and loads of flavour.  A must try.  We make a lot of combination meals like these.  We pair up certain vegetable gravies with lentil or coconut gravy preparations.  We also make this sukke as a combination, with a lentil preparation for rice called ambat.  Here, today I have served it with kholombo (sambhar variety).  Kholombo is a lentil preparation of red lentil (dal) a few vegetables of your chioce and fresh homemade masala (lightly roasted & ground spices).  The detailed post coming up tomorrow.  So getting to the recipe of sukke.  We call it batata sukke.  In our language (Konkani), we call potatoes "batata".  The recipe is as follows.

INGREDIENTS:

Potatoes	1/2 kg
Salt	1 tsp or as per preference
Coconut Oil	1 1/2  tsp
Black gram dal (urad dal)	1 tsp
Coriander seeds (Dhaniya seeds)	1 tsp
Fenugreek seeds (methi seeds)	1/4 tsp
Coconut gratings	1/2 cup
Red chillies	5-6
Tamarind	A small ball
Turmeric powder	1/4 tsp
Coconut oil*	1/2 tsp
Mustard seeds*	1/2 tsp
Curry leaves*	6-7 leaves

* to temper

METHOD:

1.       Wash the potatoes well.  Cook them in a pressure cooker for 4-5 whistles.  Alternately you could cook/boil them in a vessel.  If cooking in a vessel, peel the potatoes and cut them into cubes (about an inch in size). Pour sufficient water in the pan and add salt, add the potatoes and cook until soft.

2.       Heat a pan and add oil. On low flame, fry/roast all the ingredients separately (black gram dal, coriander seeds and fenugreek seeds, red chillies) to a reddish brown colour.  (Be careful not to burn them as the dish will turn bitter).

3.       Once done with step two, grind together coconut, tamarind, turmeric and the fried/roasted spices to a fine paste adding a little water (say about 1/4 cup). Add more if the paste is too thick.

4.       If you have boiled the potatoes in a cooker, remove, peel and cut them into 1 inch cubes. Pour the paste/masala in a pan. Add potatoes and mix well. Adjust salt.  (add water if the masala is too thick).  This preparation should be a semi gravy consistency. 

5.       Give it a tempering of mustard seeds and curry leaves. Serve hot.
6.       Enjoy it as a side dish with rice or chappati (Indian flat bread)

NOTES:

1.       Fenugreek seeds may turn the dish bitter, so be careful not to use more than mentioned.
2.       If potatoes are boiled in a vessel remember you have added salt, so adjust accordingly.
3.       You could use any oil, but using coconut oil gives the dish a wonderful flavour.
4.       Adjust the spiciness according to your taste and the spiciness of the chiilies.
5.       Tamarind could be replaced with tamarind paste, if using paste, 1/2 tsp should work just fine.