Chp 582. The Bachelor’s potato

Nobody is born with knowledge. Or maybe they are? I'm not getting into a philosophical discussion about the doctrine of Innatism in this post, so to keep it simple, let's just say knowledge is acquired as we grow up, as we learn new things every day. 

And if you don't know something, it is never embarrassing to ask. For a long time, whenever I walk into a cake shop I’ve always wondered why "eggless" cakes/pastries are more expensive than the same cake or pastries with egg in them. I mean, shouldn’t the ones with egg be more expensive? But then I asked around and found out that eggs are used for leavening, toughening, binding, hydrating, moisturizing the fat and emulsifying the batter, so if there are no eggs in the ingredient, a more expensive substitute needs to be used to perform those important tasks. Hence the reason why they cost more.

See? Just ask.

Likewise, my close friends who know me well are aware of the fact that I cook the sickest awesomest bestest amazingest fried potatoes they have ever tasted :D :P

My former flatmate nicknamed it the "heart attack potatoes" because of the huge quantity of oil I would use. But then, that oil is a part of what gave it its trademark taste. As a bachelor, we always try to find the easiest way to cook things, and my fried potatoes are no stranger to simplicity. I use no such complicated garnishes and other fancy spices, all I use are oil, onions, turmeric powder, salt and thinly sliced potatoes, that’s it. But the trick to making it so awesome lies in the way I cook it, as I focus more on simmering it at low flame for a very long time. Trust me, the taste is so different from the ones cooked in haste at high temperature.

Below is one such "standard" meal I cooked one fine weekend here in Pune. Rice, dal, tomato with eggs, and fried potatoes. My favorite combo.

I really love the above combo. But then again, a part of me really wanted to try out something new too.

And so this weekend I decided to cook one of those potatoes with "gravy" or as some might call it "curry" for the first time. Since I’ve only made "dry" potatoes before, I didn’t know how to make the ones with gravy, and googling about it only showed very complicated results, you know, the recipes with all the fancy garnishes and usage of "tbsp" and amount of spices written in ounces. What I wanted was a really simple bachelor's potato recipe. And so I asked my sisters and girlfriend for help. 

My sister u Mazami from Malaysia sent me the ingredients required to make a simple curry potato through WhatsApp, while my girlfriend from Mizoram orally took me through how to make it over Skype. Technology can be so useful if used the right way :P 

And so here it is, my first ever curry potatoes! :)

First, peel the potatoes and slice them up into half and then half and then half and then half again (this was how my girlfriend instructed me :D )

So technically, a medium sized potato must be cut up into around 16 pieces. After that, heat the oil and throw in around two onions that had been finely chopped. And then add ready-made garnishes like turmeric powder and garlic paste. Once it is ready, throw in the chopped potatoes and stir.

Keep stirring until you get that golden burnt color. Add other ingredients like salt and chillies to spice it up.

After that, add "tomato puree". You can very well add chopped tomatoes too, but like I said, this is the lazy bachelor’s potato, so tomato puree it is. :P

Along with the tomato puree, add water.

Just cover it after that in low flame. Let it simmer for a few minutes.

Thadaaaa! The simple potato gravy is ready! Now you can make this even tastier by adding chopped coriander etc, but hey, like I said, this is the bachelor’s potato. Keep it simple. You want to make it a bit fancy? Add boiled eggs to it!

So there you go. The very simple but extremely tasty gravy potatoes with eggs. Easy to make and proud of my first ever attempt. Also the best part about this is, I no longer need to make dal separately as the gravy from the potato served that purpose. Yay, I've just killed two buds with one stove :P