Aloo Posto or Potatoes with Poppy Seeds (Bengali Dish)

Aloo Posto (আলু পোস্ত) is one vegetarian dish that is tremendously popular with Bengalis. It is quite easy to prepare and needs very few ingredients. The main ingredients are Potatoes and Poppy seeds. This dish can be tweaked in many ways but here we present our version.

Cooking time - Approx. 30 minutes
Servings - 4-5

Ingredients:

Potatoes - 200-250 gm
Posto (Poppy seeds), white - 50 gm
Green chillies - 2-3 or as per tolerance
Turmeric powder (Optional) - 1 tsp
Mustard oil - 2 tbsp
Water - 1 cup
Salt - To taste

Procedure:

1. Dry roast 1 tsp of posto and keep aside.
2. Soak the remaining posto in warm water for about 30 minutes, drain and grind it coarsely with 1-2 green chillies into a paste.
3. Peel the potatoes and cut into about 1/2" cubes
4. Heat 3/4 of the mustard oil in a kadahi/pan.
5. Fry the potatoes in the oil till they are light yellow in colour and semi-cooked.
6. Add the posto-chillies paste and turmeric powder (optional), remaining mustard oil, salt and a cup of water.
7. Cover the kadahi/pan and cook till the potatoes are cooked. The consistency should be pasty when done.
8. Garnish with the roasted posto seeds and green chillies and serve.

Aloo posto goes well with rice as well with rotis/phulkas, or even without anything. Just dig in with a spoon, as we prefer to do sometimes.

Aloo Posto

Do try this recipe and let us know your feedback.

A sweet story - Gulab Jamuns

We thought that it would be apt to start our food blogging journey with a sweet that is very popular all over India. So Gulab Jamun (गुलाब जामुन) it is. Gulab Jamuns are golden/dark brown fried balls of reduced milk (Khoya  - खोया) and soaked in hot sugar syrup. You can eat it hot as well as chilled. We both love to eat Gulab Jamuns and regularly make it at home.

When ever we visit Kolkata (কলকাতা), we make many trips to the omnipresent sweet shops to sample the goodies. Inevitably Gulab Jamuns end up on our plates on every visit. In addition with every meal  we are served sweets, when ever  and where ever in Kolkata, even with breakfast.

Here are few snapshots of Gulab Jamuns that we made at home few days back.

Gulab Jamuns soaking in the syrup

Ready to eat

Soft and juicy, right to the centre.

We hope and believe that our blog will flourish with your wishes and support. Do keep visiting our blog for a wide spectrum of food and flavours across India and world.

Before I finish this post I have to thank and our friends and well wishers who insisted that we should document out culinary experiments and adventures into a blog. We hope that we live up to their expectations.

Finally this blog is our dedications to our mothers and all those who have taught us various tips and tricks of cooking over all this years.