When I was in college, I used to make a potato recipe in a tamarind sauce a lot. That was a signature dish I had discovered in a magazine, most likely Women’s Era and had written it down. I did not bring that notebook with me when I moved to Singapore and now that recipe is lost.

The other day I suddenly started thinking of that recipe and turned to Google to see if I can find it somewhere in the world wide web. Unfortunately, I could not remember most of the ingredients and hence could not verify if any of the recipes were the same.

I did read a recipe from Sanjeev Kapoor which I felt was the closest to what I remembered and so adapted this recipe to my own. So here’s my version of tangy and sweet-sour potatoes.

Sweet Sour Potatoes

Ingredients:

• 1 cup potatoes, scrubbed well and cut into long fingers with the jacket on
• 1 lemon-sized ball of tamarind, soaked in hot water for 20 minutes and pulped and make it into 2 cups of tamarind water (or if you are using tamarind paste, use 2-3 tsp of the same)
• 2 tbsp (more or less) Jaggery (you can alternate this with brown sugar if you don’t have access to jaggery)
• 1 tsp cumin seeds
• 1 tsp fennel seeds
• 1 tsp mustard seeds
• 1 tsp coriander seeds
• 3-4 dried red chillies
• 1/8 tsp asafoetida
• 1 tsp kasuri methi (dried fenugreek leaves)
• 1 tsp oil
• Salt to taste

Method:

• In a dry pan, dry roast the cumin seeds, fennel seeds, coriander seeds and chillies separately till they start to emit a nice aroma. Make sure you don’t burn the spices. Keep aside, cool and blend into a fine powder.
• Heat oil in a largish pan and when the oil heats up, add the mustard seeds and let them pop. When they pop, add the asafoetida and stir for a couple of seconds. Then add in the powdered spice mix and stir for a couple of seconds.
• Then pour in the tamarind water and jaggery and some salt and let it come to a nice rolling boil.
• After about five minutes, when the raw smell of the tamarind goes away, add the potatoes and let them cook. Cook the potatoes till a knife pierced through one, goes in cleanly. Don’t overcook them. Check for salt at this point and add more if needed.
• Finish off with taking the kasuri methi in the palms of your hands and crush it to release the oils and aroma and sprinkle it over the potatoes and gravy.
• Switch off the gas and garnish with chopped coriander. Serve with rice or rotis (Indian flatbreads)