Methi Aloo

Excuse my bad attempts at food photography using Instagram. This probably looks like a bad version of bubble and squeak. Please trust me when I say this dish is delicious - full of spices and yummy potato.

The recipe is adapted from 'World Kitchen India' from Murdoch Books. I used fresh English spinach instead of methi (fresh fenugreek), and I added some cauliflower to bulk up the small amount of potatoes I had on hand.

The recipe was perfect for me as I spent the morning cruising the local markets for veges, and I already had the spices in my pantry. The guy at the markets told me to use the root of the spinach as it has heaps of flavour and iron. I'm a big fan of using the whole plant so I chopped the root finely and added it with the spinach. Be sure to cook it though as it is a little 'woody' otherwise.

Recipe:

1 small onion, roughly chopped
2 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
2.5 cm (1 in) piece of ginger, roughly chopped
1/3 cup oil
1/4 teaspoon ground turmeric
600g (1 lb 5 oz) potatoes, cut into cubes
1/2 cauliflower, cut into small florets
2 green chillies, seeded and finely chopped
1/4 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
3 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
2 bunches of English spinach, roughly chopped

Chop together onion, garlic and ginger. Heat the oil in a heavy-based saucepan over medium heat and fry the onion mixture until softened. Stir in the turmeric. Add the potato, cauliflower and fresh chillis and fry for 5 minutes. Add the chilli powder, cumin, coriander, salt and pepper and stir for 1 minute.

Add 2 tablespoons water to the pan, cover, reduce the heat and simmer. As the potato cooks, it might start sticking to the pan, so after 10 minutes, add two more tablespoons of water if necessary. At no stage should the potato be allowed to brown.

After 10 minutes, stir in the spinach and cook over low heat for 15 minutes, or until the potato and cauliflower is soft. Season with salt, to taste.