Boiled: REQUEST: Tibetan Spicy Potatoes

Subject: REQUEST: Tibetan Spicy Potatoes
Newsgroups: rec.food.cooking
From: noring at netcom.com (Jon Noring)
Date: 5 Aug 2000 15:32:59 GMT
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Hello,

At our local Tibetan restaurant they served a wonderful dish they called "Tibetan spicy potatoes". It is essentially boiled potato pieces sauteed in a little chili sauce of some sort. Very spicy hot and very good.

Anybody have a recipe for this?

Thanks.
Jon Noring
From: sackv at uni-duesseldorf.de (Victor Sack)
Date: Sun, 6 Aug 2000 08:52:43 +0200
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Jon Noring (noring at netcom.com) wrote:
> At our local Tibetan restaurant they served a wonderful dish they called
> "Tibetan spicy potatoes". It is essentially boiled potato pieces sauteed
> in a little chili sauce of some sort. Very spicy hot and very good.

It could have been Nepalese pickled potatoes, or maybe a kind of potato curry. Here are a couple of recipes found on the net.

Victor

From http://nepalhomepage.com/nepali-food-nepali-food-recipe/sd-aaluachaar/

Pickled Potatoes (Aalu Achaar)

Ingredients

10-12 medium-sized potatoes
1/4 cup black sesame seeds (til)
2-3 green chillies (more or less according to taste)
1/4 tsp turmeric
3-4 tbsp lemon juice
1-2 tbsp mustard oil
coriander leaves
1 tsp chili powder
salt according to taste

Instructions

Boil and peel potatoes. Cut them into approx 1 inch cubes. Place the til in a pan and roast the till they look well roasted and crisp. Remove the pan fron heat and let the til cool. Then grind the til into a fine powder(as you might notice til contains oil). Add the til powder, chili powder, salt, turmeric, lemon juice and mustard oil to the potatoes and mix well. Also add the green chilies cutting them into long strips. If the sauce looks too thick you can add some water and if the sauce is not thick enough you can add some mashed potatoes. Garnish with coriander leaves and enjoy.

Submitted by: Radha Agrawal
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From http://www.nepalhomepage.com/society/recipes/v-potatocurry.html [archive.org]

Potato Curry (Aalu Tarkari)

Ingredients

10-12 potatoes (medium sized)
1/4 tsp tumeric
2 chillies
1 clove garlic
1/2 cup yogurt
2 TBS mustard oil
green coriander leaves
1 inch ginger
salt to taste

Instructions

Boil potatoes, peel and cut into small pieces. Heat oil and add tumeric, green chillies, garlic, and ginger. Fry for 1 minute. Add yogurt, potatoes and salt. Cover and cook gently for 4-5 minutes. Garnish with green coriander leaves.

If desired water can also be added after frying potatoes and boil it for 5 minutes to give it the right consistency.

Submitted by: JOYS OF NEPALESE COOKING, Lashkar (Gwalior), 1988
From: noring at netcom.com (Jon Noring)
Date: 6 Aug 2000 14:07:46 GMT
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Victor Sack wrote:
>It could have been Nepalese pickled potatoes, or maybe a kind of potato
>curry. Here are a couple of recipes found on the net.

Thanks for replying to my request.

The first recipe is nowhere close. The second recipe (potato curry) is closer. However, the *small* amount of sauce was very chile-like and not curry-like at all -- it was very red and oily, so chili oil was used. No yogurt or any other liquid was used -- the dish was quite dry, the moisture mostly coming from the boiled potatoes themselves. Besides chili oil, there were a few other ingredients, but I don't know what they were.

Next time I get to the Tibetan restaurant I plan to ask them for their recipe, and hope they will provide it to me.

Thanks again.

Jon Noring
From: Paul Ballas (pabloali at aol.com)
Date: Sun, 06 Aug 2000 17:03:19 -0400
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Jon Noring wrote:
> The first recipe is nowhere close. The second recipe (potato curry) is
> closer. However, the *small* amount of sauce was very chile-like and not
> curry-like at all -- it was very red and oily, so chili oil was used. No
> yogurt or any other liquid was used -- the dish was quite dry, the moisture
> mostly coming from the boiled potatoes themselves. Besides chili oil, there
> were a few other ingredients, but I don't know what they were.

I've never had such a dish in an Asian restaurant, but certainly the idea may well have come from the Americas, just as the potatoes did. Papas con chile is a popular dish, although our family does not have a written recipe anywhere. The sauce is made by boiling the dried chiles colorados (Use your favorite variety.) in a minimal amount of water. When they are nice and soft, blend them with corn oil, sautéed garlic, and a little vinegar. Add to the cooking potatoes in a hot skillet. Because you seem to be the only one who knows how the Tibetan dish should look and taste, use your own best judgment. Experiment a little. Doesn't sound that exotic...
Pablo