Shakkarkand ki Sabzi

I am posting on my blog after so long I almost forgot how to login to my blogger account. Yes it has been that long..my last post was in January 2015 which is more than a year and a half ago. But what has had me wanting to post is the almost steady series of likes I get on my Facebook page with zero effort.

So today I made a dish which is not such a common one, so thought I would post it. It has sweet potato or shakar kand as the main ingredient. Sweet potato is mostly had either boiled, roasted or in the form of pakodas (in my native place) and also as crisps. Long back there was a spicy sweet potato stir fry, which I had tried from the Women’s Era cookery pages (those were the days when we read Women's Era) and it had turned out quite well. But then I lost the recipe.

The recipe I am posting today is a spicy recipe which will go well with puris. Let’s go in for the recipe now:

Ingredients

2 medium-sized sweet potatoes,

2 tbsp mustard oil,

2 green cardamom,

2 black cardamom,

4-5 cloves,

2 spicy red chillies,

1 large pinch of cumin seeds,

1 large pinch of coriander seeds,

5-6 black peppercorns,

1 small piece of cinnamon,

1 pinch of asafoetida,

1 bay leaf,

3-4 chopped green chillies,

1 tsp powdered red chillies,

½ tsp powdered turmeric,

1 tsp powdered coriander seeds,

1 tsp powdered cumin seeds,

1 tsp any mixed curry masala you have (optional),

Salt to taste,

Generous amount of chopped coriander leaves,

Juice of half a lime

Method

Peel and cut the sweet potato into bite-sized chunks.

Heat mustard oil till smoking in a pressure cooker. Once it reaches smoking point, lower the heat and add the chopped red chillies, green cardamom, cloves, coriander seeds, cumin seeds, peppercorns, cinnamon, bay leaves and black cardamom. Let them sizzle for a minute.

Now add the chopped green chillies, all the powdered spices and let it fry for a about a minute again. Now toss in the chopped sweet potato chunks and mix well. Let it cook with the spices for about a minute.

Then add about a cup and a half of water and add the salt. Close the pressure cooker lid and wait for one whistle. Lower the whistle and cook for another 3-4 minutes. Switch off the flame and let the steam release on its own. Open the cooker and add the chopped coriander leaves and juice of lime. Mix and serve.

Goes well with puris. I served it with kalonji-flavoured puris as a Sunday special lunch.

Notes:

• This recipe has a predominant flavour of cloves, you may decrease the number of cloves you are using, if desired.
• You can also cook this outside of a pressure cooker, just adjust your cooking time and water content accordingly.