Basic dinner recipe for beginners - Aloo baaji /potato masala with Jeera rice

Hi All,

Have you ever got home and want to whip something up really fast. Today's Dinner recipe is one of the most basic dishes you can cook . It's easy, filling, and really cheap(no expensive ingredients) . You can really impress your family  / better half with this meal. As this is a meal plan, I will post a game plan which will help you plan how to cook the whole thing.
To complete the meal, add a dessert which can be as basic as Fruit platter or elaborate as Carrot halwa( I have never made it myself so I cant write the recipe for it). I also add a raita to cool myself, Raita is very simple and just some yogurt/ curd with some chopped vegetables would do.

Game Plan for potato masala with Jeera rice Dinner

This recipe will  take around 15 minutes of preparation and  half an hour cooking time. There are certain overlaps you can do to minimize time.
Step 1: washing everything and keeping everything ready. 

Start by washing and soaking the rice.Next peal the potatoes, onions , ginger and garlic (if you are using it). Wash these along with the tomato. Wash a pressure cooker and a kadai or non stick pan .
Step 2:
 Start chopping the onions . Crush the garlic and ginger to a fine mash.
Turn on the gas . Put the cooker. And pan. Let the pan get hot meanwhile add ghee and jeera into the cooker immediately before frying the rice .
Now the pan will be hot add oil , mustard jeera and fry the ginger garlic onion mixture .
Turn gas to medium.
Now your rice will be fried. Add water into this and salt and cover the cooker .

Step 3: cut the potatoes and follow the rest of the recipe for baaji
Step 4:Once you hear 1 whistle, take the cooker from the gas and leave it till all pressure goes off..

Step 5: if you feel there is excess water in the rice or if you think it's not that flavour full, then drain the rice and transfer to a non stick pan with a little ghee and fry it for 2 minutes .

Basic potato masala 

Recipe type:Indian, Dinner, vegetarian

Prep time: 10 minutes

 Cooking time :0.5 hour .

Serves:6

Ingredients

1. Potatoes - 4 medium size

2. Onions - 2 large

3. Tomato - 1 large

4. Ginger - roughly about half your thumb

5. Garlic - 4 -7 cloves

6. Mustard seeds - 1 table spoon

7. Jeera -  1 tea spoon

8. Turmeric powder -1/4th teaspoon

9. Chilly powder - a little more than ½ tablespoon

10. Coriander powder - 1 tablespoon

Oil -. 2 table spoons

Salt to taste

Method:

Cut the potatoes to one cm cubes or small pieces. Chop the onions finely . Crush ginger garlic to a paste like consistency (if you are not using garlic you can omit it).chop the tomatoes  finely   .

In a pan or kadai , heat oil and once hot add the mustard seeds, always wait till it splutters for enhanced flavour . Now add jeera and ginger garlic paste. Saute till you get that amazing aroma from garlic. Now add onion and salt. Fry till the onions turn lightly brown . Add turmeric powder and coat the onions. Now add coriander powder and bring the mixture together . Make sure the heat is just medium high  and ensure nothing is sticking to the bottom of the pan. Once the coriander powder is fried for a while , add the chilly powder . I normally add chilly powder at the last as chilly powder can burn easily causing a chockhy( not a real word lol) smell which makes you cough.

Stir for 10 seconds, add tomatoes . Now the heat needs to be consistent, you need to keep it at medium else the tomato will dry up and burn, if its too low then it will take a really long time. Tomatoes need to be cooked for at least 5-7 minutes, this is crucial and will form the flavor base for the recipe, you will know tomatoes are done when oil starts dissipating from the sides, now for a beginner it will be difficult to sense this, what you can look out for is see the change in the consistency of the mixture tomatoes will be all mashed up and the chilly powder and masalas will be combined with the tomatoes, if you push a bit of the mixture aside, you will find a liquid( which is actually oil) oozing off, also the mixture will turn from red to a deep maroon or brownish. Ensure that the mixture is not too dry. One thing that I use to identify is through the smell, that coughy, chocky smell from the masalas will go off and you can start to smell a different more subtle smell. 

Once your tomato mixture is cooked well, add the potatoes and coat the mixture well . Turn the heat to high and stir for a while, once the potatoes are well coated , add some water and close the pan with a lid. Cook this for about 5 minutes, open the lid, add a little bit more water and turn down the heat to medium low and cover and cook for another 10 minutes, you need to cook it till the potatoes are cooked through and easily splits up when you push through a potato. You can easily mess up if water is not enough hence its better to check for water level once a while. If your potatoes are cooked through and you feel that the mixture is too liquid,then you need to turn the heat high enough to dry it a bit. The overall dish should be relatively dry with just a hint of water.

Check for seasoning , the taste should not overpower any of the spice, it should be balanced. 

Sprinkle with a cup ( or a handful) of coriander which is chopped. Serve immediately 

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Jeera Rice 

Recipe type:Indian, Dinner, vegetarian

Prep time: 5 minute

 Cooking time :0.5 hour .

Serves:6

Ingredients

1. Rice - 2 Cups( for one person, only half a cup rice is required, Preferably use Basmati rice)
2. Jeera/Cumin seeds - 1.5 table spoon( less than 1/2 teaspoon for one person)
3. Ghee - 2 tablespoon or as required

Method:

Wash the rice and Soak the rice in water, water should be above the level for rice. This is usually kept for any time from 5 minutes to 1/2 hour. As we are always busy, I normally just keep it till my veggies are chopped.

Take a pressure cooker or a heavy bottomed pan or rice cooker. Add the ghee and Jeera. Drain the rice and add the rice to the cooker, stir the contents till the rice is a little fried and a beautiful aroma is out.Add salt if required( not mandatory)

Now add enough water to cook the rice. Normally you add 2.5 times rice to water ratio. Cook the rice till Al-Dante which basically means cook till about done not to the level that the rice mashes up. If you are using pressure cooker, only 1 whistle is required, only open the cooker once all the pressure is completely gone.

Normally there will be some water left in the rice, draining this would mean you loose all the flavor of ghee, hence you would need to saute it again with a little bit of ghee till the rice is cooked through and fluffy.

Serve immediately.

Notes:

1. For Jeera rice ,Using ghee is more traditional, however using oil or butter is also fine .

2. You can easily mess up Jeera rice if you overcook the rice, hence always under-cook the rice and saute it in a pan with additional ghee till optimal cooking  is achieved.

3. If you are keeping the rice for long, the taste and texture will be different, its due to Ghee solidifying.  

4.For Potato masala , keep in mind that the tomato mixture and masalas should not burn, hence keep an eye all through the cooking process.

5. Add a bit of Garam masala if you like spicy food. Alternatively you can add a bit of ketchup if the potato dish is too spicy.