Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Stuffed potato floats




To say the least, this culinary experience of cooking and sharing recipes as made me more experimental and daring. Many times I fail to impress myself with an attempt and do not feel good about sharing, yet many other times, I feel it is all worth the experiment.
Isn't it true that if encouraged, one tries to do ordinary things extraordinarily? However limited my husband's choices were with vegetables, and I enjoyed most others too, he would add them to the shopping and will partake a miniscule spoonful of the end product. But I always combined such with his choicest potatoes and tomatoes that he was left with no option but to consume.
Then there was a phase that I cooked for friends who always had nice compliments that thrilled me and thus made me look for interesting things. Sharing recipes in my blog has taken it to newer dimensions. One such experiment is the recipe in this post.

I had tried making koftas with mashed potatoes and filling the core with different stuff, baked them and then stuffed the centres and some such dishes. Recently, I had some handsome looking potatoes that I scooped the centres out and filled with other stuff and floated them in a gravy. It was one dish that my guests were going for more helpings.

Ingredients: (serves for four people)
For floats:
6 medium to large, firm potatoes cut in halves

For the filling:
2 tablespoons almond meal
2 tablespoons raisins
2 green chillis chopped
1 large tomato chopped
1/4 teaspoon turmeric powder
2 teaspoons oil
Salt to taste

For the gravy:
1/3 cup moong dhal
2 teaspoons coriander seeds
2 teaspoons cumin seeds
2 teaspoons sambhar powder or rasam powder
2 medium tomatoes
1 large red onion
5 cloves garlic
3 dry red chillis
1 teaspoon garam masala powder
1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder
1 tablespoon oil
Salt to taste

Other ingredients:
cooking oil required to saute' the potatoes

Method:
Preparing the potato floats:
Wash the potatoes and scrub them very clean. You may peel the jackets prior to scooping or choose to steam them with the skin on and then peel.
Cut the potatoes in half in the middle.
Using a sharp knife, scoop out carefully a sizable chunk of potato from the centre of each half, leaving a slightly thick wall on the sides.
Slice a small portion of the bottom for stability.
Keep the scooped centres aside and steam the cup like potatoes until just about tender and the peel comes off. Steam separately the scoops and mash them well.
Keep these aside until required.

Preparing the filling:
Heat the oil in a pan, add all the ingredients for the filling and toss them for a while.
Add the mashed potato and blend the filling well.



Fill the dents in the potato floats with the prepared filling. Heat oil in the kuzhi paniyaaram pan/ Aebleskiver pan. Place gently the filled potatoes with the filling showing upwards and shallow fry them until they are roasted.
Since the filling has already been cooked well, there is no need to turn them over and roast.
Once the potatoes are roasted remove from the pan and place them on absorbent tissues.

For the gravy:
Roast the moong dhal a bit until aromatic. Pressure cook the moong dhal with turmeric powder until very soft and mash the same. I run it in the blender and made it to a soup-like consistency.
Chop the onion, tomatoes and the garlic.
Heat oil and add the dry red chillis, coriander seeds and cumin seeds. Add the chopped onions first and few minutes later the garlic. Cook them well.
Allow to cool and blend well in a mixer adding the sambhar powder, garam masala powder. Blend the chopped tomatoes separately.


Add this to the mashed dhal and salt and bring to a boil.
Reduce the heat and allow to simmer and thicken to desired consistency.
Few minutes before removing from the stove, place the potatoes gently. Allow them to simmer in the gravy and absorb the flavours.
Switch the heat off and transfer the gravy to the serving dish. Add fresh coriander leaves for garnish. I had some grated carrots and fresh red chillis that I used also.


Serve hot with chappathis, naan , phulkas or rotis.

This dhal based curry is being sent to Priya's Cooking with seeds event currently running in her own blog with Moong beans.

33 comments:

  1. Lataji,

    Potato floats looks delicious.

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  2. Floats look delicious. Well prepared. The bowl also looks cute

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  3. Looks so cute and interesting idea too

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  4. Potato Float looks superb. The presentation is very nice.

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  5. Lovely post Lata...what is almond meal? someting like soya chunks? never heard of them?// I love the serving vessel in which the potatoes are floating!

    Shobha

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  6. Sounds delicious,who will say no to double treat :)

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  7. Woow a sure treat for o lovers!!!! looks so unique and yummy :)

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  8. wow....
    looks wonderful and ur clicks are too tempting :)

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  9. Sounds interesting and tempting.. thanks for the awesome recipe.. Yummy :)
    Indian Cuisine

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  10. Omg, wat a fabulous looking stuffed potato floats, seriously looks irresistible Akka,thanks for sending to CWS..

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  11. Lovely treat to the eyes and very tempting, calling for me to try it soon, exactly your words my H's choicest potatoes with no option but to consume, if given chance every day.., and his beloved children too.., this recipe would be a winner definitely.., I make your sambhar again and again with my Idlis, I made it again last sunday when I had my sis and family for visiting me :).., Oops I would have clicked the post comment before writing to you that the clicks are absolutely gorgeous...

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  12. yummy receipe, potatoes in a new idea, looks great.

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  13. My turn to swoon, just stuff my 1/2 open jaws with the potatoes to revive me!!! ;-)

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  14. Superb recipe Lataji..those potatoes look gorgeous and even the gravy with daal is great, I will make these soon.

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  15. Wow, this recipe sounds gr8 . Very well explained mam.. Will surely try this sometime :)

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  16. What a delicious experiment that is akka... even before you started blogging I think you cooked some pretty unique things (from the braided breads and tarts and other yummy things I've tasted). This mung dhal gravy is awesome and must be such a nice change from the usual onion-tomato gravies we use. very pretty looking.

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  17. Awesome! I love the idea of using a paniyaram pan for roasting the potatoes :) Also since the gravy base is moong dal , it can serve as a protein source as well! Very creative as usual!!

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  18. Lovely recipe and very well presented....

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  19. Looks so delicous lataji. Thanks for sharing, who could have thought of this kind of recipe- floating potatoes in gravy!

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  20. verrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrry very superb,lip smacking,droolworthy and awesome presentation and very innovative too and a truly feast for the eyes.
    indu srinivasan

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  21. Love it Lataji.. looks super delicious.

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  22. This is a lovely recipe takes effort but I guess end result is worth it.

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  23. These look delicious. Almost like dum aloo but only better :-) Love the serving dish as well.

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  24. That's nifty ! Never thought of doing something like this :-) A perfect gravy too, with the moong dal

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  25. Wow really drooling recipe with beautiful clicks and crockery is so nice!!

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  26. Lata Madam , did this for s.day night dinner ...came out so yummy ..My son loved it a lot ...thanks a lot for the recp..

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  27. This looks amazing and sounds delicious! This could be an hearty appetizer by itself too.

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  28. Absolutely yummy and you've beautifully explained every single step to reproduce this at home :) "Slice a small portion of the bottom for stability" I wouldnt have thought of that!

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  29. Bowing down to you patience and your stuffed potatoes. Hallejulah..

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Hello,
Welcome and thank you for taking time to drop by.
I appreciate your valuable comments and tips.
I sincerely hope to improve with them.
Hope we shall interact often.
Thanks once again,
Lata Raja.