Dum Aloo is a scrumptious potato curry, made with a yogurt curry base. There are many many ways to make Dum Aloo, and this is the Punjabi version of the Dum Aloo Recipe.
What is Dum Aloo?
Dum Aloo is a popular Indian Curry that is made with different variations throughout North India. The most popular dum aloo recipes, are the Restaurant Style Creamy Dum Aloo, Kashmiri Dum Aloo, and Bengali-style Alur Dom. All these three recipes are made using baby potatoes, but completely different styles of cooking.
About This Restaurant Style Dum Aloo
This restaurant-style recipe is a creamy, and scrumptious curry that is spicy, with a mild tartness from yogurt.
The gravy is made using onions, tomatoes, and cashews. And a spiced yogurt mix is prepared as well. This version is heavily infused with north Indian flavors and is perfect to make for special occasions or when you are hosting guests.
What is the difference between Kashmiri Dum Aloo and The Punjabi Dum Aloo?
The Kashmiri Style of cooking this curry does not involve any use of onions and garlic. The sauce is made with a generous amount of oil, yogurt and a few spices with a tempering of cumin seeds, and then the fried baby potatoes are added to the curry.
While the Punjabi style of cooking this curry sauce has the base of onions, tomatoes, and cashews along with spiced yogurt. Everything is slowly cooked and then the baby potatoes are added. The curry is deliciously creamy from cashews and yogurt, and no extra cream is added to the curry.
Expert Tips to Make this Recipe
- Cook the baby potatoes until a fork can effortlessly pierce through it. This means that the baby potatoes are boiled and there is no need to fry them. I just sautรฉ them in red chili powder, turmeric, and salt in some oil, to make sure they develop subtle flavors.
- Soak the cashews in hot water at least for 10 minutes. to make sure they grind into a smooth puree.
- Making spiced yogurt is very important. Use full-fat plain desi dahi (Indian Yogurt) to make this.
- I add fennel powder, which adds a refreshing flavor to this recipe. You can either grind the fennel seeds with onions, tomato, and cashews or add fennel powder to the spiced yogurt.
- I add the same spices at 3 different stages in this recipe. This helps to develop the depth of flavors, and bring a luscious orange color to the gravy.
- To add smokiness to this curry, you can heat up the coal, once it is well burnt, place it in a heat-proof small bowl. Make a well in the curry, and place the bowl in it. Now add ghee on top of the hot coal. And cover the pot. Trap all the smoke in the curry. After 5 minutes you can open the lid and take the bowl with the coal out.
Ingredients to Make This Recipe
Boil the Potatoes
- Baby Potatoes - Baby Potatoes are popularly used in this recipe, but if you cannot source them, or you don't want to buy them specially. You can also use regular golden potatoes, just cut them into bigger pieces.
- Water - You will need about 8 cups of water to cook the baby potatoes
- Salt - A pinch of salt to cook the potatoes
Make the Curry Base
- Cashews - The curry sauce will have creamy, nutty, and mildly sweet flavors from cashews. If you don't have cashews you can soak almonds and remove the skin before grinding them in a puree.
- Onions - I like to use yellow onions for this recipe. They caramelize well as them cook, and render sweeter notes.
- Tomatoes - I use a very small tomato to give the required tang and sweetness to the curry, but you can totally skip it.
- Ginger, Garlic and Green Chili Paste - Make ginger garlic and green chili paste using ยฝ inch ginger, 4-5 small cloves of garlic and 1 Thai green chili
Spiced Yogurt
- Indian Dahi - Use plain full-fat Indian Yogurt to make this recipe. If you want to use greek yogurt, use plain unsweetened greek yogurt, and skip adding tomatoes.
- Fennel Seeds Powder - Fennel means Saunf or Variyadi. I like to grind some fennel seeds in my spice grinder to make a smooth powder. Fennel seed powder perfumes the curry the beautifully with its refreshing flavor.
- Other Ground Spices - Red chili powder, turmeric, and cumin-coriander powder are also added to the yogurt.
- Salt - Adding salt to yogurt before cooking the yogurt prevents the yogurt from curdling when introduced to heat.
Final Curry
- Ghee/ Oil - I like to use oil in this recipe to make it, but you can totally use ghee or a mix of ghee and oil.
- Whole Spices for Tempering - Once the Oil is hot, we will add cumin seeds, bay leaf, and green cardamoms.
- Ground Spices - Kashmiri Red chili powder, turmeric, cumin-coriander powder, garam masala, and kasuri methi, are the ground spices we use for this curry.
- Cilantro - Finely Chopped Cilantro in the end for garnishing.
Video To Make Dum Aloo
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Dum Aloo
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Equipment
- 1 Sauce Pan
- 1 Heavy Bottom Pot
Ingredients
Boil The Potatoes
- 10-12 Baby Potatoes
- 8 Cups Water
- ยผ Tsp Salt
Onion Tomato Curry Base
- 10-12 Cashews
- ยฝ Cup Water hot
- 1.5 Cups Onions Roughly Chopped
- โ Cup Tomatoes Roughly Chopped
Spiced Yogurt
- โ Cup Plani Yogurt
- ยฝ Tsp Fennel Seeds Powder
- ยฝ Tsp Red Chili Powder
- ยฝ Tsp Cumin Coriander Powder
- ยผ Tsp Turmeric
- ยฝ Tsp Salt
Final Curry Base
- 2 Tbsp Oil / Ghee
- 1 Tsp Kashmiri Red Chili Powder We will use this at two different stages of cooking the curry
- ยฝ teaspoon Cumin Coriander Powder
- ยผ Tsp Turmeric
- 1 Tsp Salt We will use this at two different stages of cooking the curry
- ยฝ Tsp Cumin Seeds
- 2 Green Cardamoms
- 1 Small Bay Leaf
- 1 Tbsp Ginger Garlic and Green Chili Paste
- ยฝ Tsp Garam Masala
- ยฝ Tsp Sugar (Optional;To Balance the Flavors)
- ยฝ Tsp Kasuri Methi
- 1 Cup Water
Instructions
Boil The Potatoes
- Wash the baby potatoes thoroughly.
- And in a small bowl Soak Cashews in Hot water for 10 minutes.
- Add 8 cups of water to a saucepan. And then add the washed baby potaties to the water along with salt.
- Place the sauce pan on the stove on high heat. Let the potatoes boil until fork tender.
- Trasfer the potatoes in a strainer and wash them off with cold water to stop the cooking of potatoes any further, and let them cool down, before you can peel off the skin.
Make the Curry Base and Spiced Yogurt
- Strain the cashews after soaking them for 10 minutes.
- To a mixing jar, add roughly chopped onions, tomatoes and soaked cashews.
- Grind into a smooth puree. Keep it Aside
- To make the spiced yogurt, add yogurt, fennel seeds powder, red chili powder, turmeric, cumin coriander powder and salt. Whisk the yogurt using the whisk to incorporate yogurt with all the spices. Keep it aside.
Final Curry Sauce
- Add oil in a heavy bottom pot on medium high flame.
- Once hot, add half teaspoon of kashmiri red chili powder, and quarter teaspoon each turmeric and salt. Give it a mix.
- To this add peeled baby potatoes.
- Fry them until they are coated with the spice mix properly and browns just a little bit.
- Take them out in a plate lined with paper towel.
- Now to the same pot add cumin seeds, green cardamoms and bay leaf.
- Next add the prepared onion, tomato and cashew puree. Mix well.
- Add dd half a teaspoon of Kashmiri red chili powder, half a teaspoon of cumin coriander powder and a quarter teaspoon each of turmeric and salt. Mix well
- Next add in the ginger garlic and green chili paste. Mix well. Add splash of water if you have to deglaze the pot.
- Cook the curry sauce on medium low flame, stiring every now and then until the oil starts to seperate.
- Now turn the flame on low, and add the whisked spiced yogurt.
- Mix it continuously to make sure the yogurt doesn't curdle and seperate for 5-7 minutes.
- Now add sugar, garam masala and kasuri methi to the curry. and mix well.
- Lastly add, baby potatoes and water & bring curry to simmer
- Add chopped cilantro in the end for garnish and serve with either piping hot rice or parathas
Notes
- Read the blog carefully to make sure you are thorough with the recipe.ย
- If you want to make this recipe vegan, use cashew yogurt.ย
- If you don't have fennel powder, add ยฝ Teaspoon of fennel seeds with onions tomatoes, and cashews.ย
- If you think your yogurt with curdle, temper the yogurt with 1 tablespoon of cooked curry sauce, and then add the yogurt to the curry sauce. This will expose the yogurt to a hot temperature before adding it to the curry sauce.ย
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