South Indian Style Aloo Mattar by Tigers & Strawberries

As promised, I made the South Indian Style Aloo Mattar from Tigers & Strawberries almost instantly after reading about on Barbara's blog. It was perfect timing for me--I am due to head to the big international and all things foodie grocery store (Jungle Jim's) in the city this week, so I am running low on a lot of things (it is a monthly trip), but I knew I had peas and potatoes--and of course I always have spices and onions. And you can convince me to eat peas and potatoes with Indian spices any time, I am always in the mood for them--which is kind of ridiculous when you consider that peas rolling into my mashed potatoes was a moment of trauma for me as a child.


But I digress. My verdict on the dish? It was very good--but I learned 2 things. First, on a whim I chose to toast the spices in the spice paste, which increased their intensity, in which case maybe I should have reduced them. Second, I doubled the recipe which doubled those toasted spices--I should have followed my instinct when I realized it was a lot of spices! Especially because Barbara cooks the way I cook--loads of garlic, onions and spices, so clearly there was not going to be as much wriggle room as I have with some recipes, where I am desperately adding more spices at the end of cooking the dish. So this is all my way of saying that we loved the dish but it was a little too spicy (spicy spices, not spicy hot) for us. Just a tad. And I think it is user error--I should have just followed my common sense when I saw I was adding about 1/4 cup of a spice mix!


The only other change I made--by necessity--was to use a little mint and a lot of cilantro, because that was all I had in my garden. Since those were all my changes, I am sending you to Barabra's site for the recipe. However I have returned to this post (pre-publishing) after eating some leftovers to say that my Sweet Tomato Relish was perfect with this.