Spicy Potato Roast | Crispy Aloo(Alu) Fry

I have mentioned many times before that I love baby potatoes and never miss a chance to pick them up during my shopping.You can check out various baby potato recipes like Baby potato biriyani, Dum Aloo chutney waale, Pudina Aloo and other recipes here.I try to use baby potatoes in place of various recipes as I prefer them.I usually make this simple Potato roast for weekend lunch as it is very simple and complements sambar or rasam very well.

Spicy Potato Roast | Crispy Aloo Fry:

(Serves 2)

Ingredients:

18-20 Baby Potatoes or 4 Big Potatoes

2 tbsp Tamarind pulp

3/4 tsp Red Chili powder or  Garlic chili powder

1 tsp Kurala Podi/Multi purpose curry powder (Optional)

Salt to taste

to temper:
1/2 tsp Mustard seeds
1 tsp Urad dal
2-3 red chillies,broken
a sprig of Curry leaves
2 tbsp Oil

Method:

• Dilute the tamarind pulp with enough water and add cleaned and washed potatoes and salt and pressure cook for 1 whistle.Let the pressure drops and drain the potatoes and let them cool.
• Peel the skins off and keep them aside.If the baby potatoes are big,cut them into 2.If you are using normal potatoes cut each of them into 8 big chunks.
• Heat the kadai and add oil and heat it.
• Add mustard seeds and let them crackle and then add urad dal,red chillies and curry leaves to it.
• Add the boiled and peeled baby potatoes(or the cubes) and fry them in oil on HIGH flame for 2-3 minutes.Keep them stirring in between so that the potatoes are well covered with oil and roast evenly and also take care not to let  them burnt.
• Once you see the brown patches on the potatoes,if you feel the oil is more you can remove the oil from the sides by gently handling the potatoes or otherwise leave it.I try to remove the extra oil at this stage as we do not need more now to fry them.
• Now reduce the flame and let them roast over low flame for approx 8-10 mins.Keep stirring them to avoid them burnt and also make sure you roast them evenly.
• Add salt,red chili powder(or garlic chili powder) and Kurala podi and stir them to coat the potatoes with all the spices.
• Roast for another 2-3 mins on low flame.

Serve them immediately with hot rice or as a side dish for sambar/rasam with rice.

Notes:

1. These kind of roasts/fry will loose their crispiness after a while,so its better to serve immediately.
2. In case you want to serve later you can roast them again in the same pan for 4-5 mins on medium flame to get the crispiness back at the time of serving.
3. You can follow the same process for Arbi and Raw Bananas.
4. I like the addition of Kurala podi in the recipe,if you do not have you can avoid it.