Shaak-umentary

Yesterday F. and I set out to document the process of making potato-cauliflower shaak so that we can send the recipe to the wedding catering folks. It turns out that we are not as certain about the method as we thought we were, and we learned some stuff about the recipe while we were making it.

Start with 4ish medium potatoes and a head of cauliflower. The sizes of vegetables can vary, but just try to have an equal volume of each.


It is a good idea to microwave, bake, pressure-cook, or boil the potatoes beforehand because then they don't have to be stir-fried as long. You want a pretty soft texture so they're easy to pick up. We didn't do it that way this time, just to see how long it would take to stir-fry them. Normally we pre-cook them though, and I think it works better that way. F's mom also pre-cooks the cauliflower, but I like the cauliflower less squishy than F. likes it.

Next, peel and cut up the potatoes into 1/2 inch to 3/4 inch cubes.


Cut the cauliflower into comparably-sized pieces.


Now for the cooking! Heat a few tablespoons of oil in a large frying pan, then add 1/2 tsp whole cumin seeds, 1/2 tsp whole mustard seeds, a few chopped fresh chilies, and about 3 big pinches of asafoetida (hing). I have never met anyone who knew what hing is called in English who did not also know what it was called in hindi or some other Indian language. It's like jaggery that way. Only Indian people know that it's called that in English, I think.


Fry those spices in the oil until they start to smell good. Then throw in the potatoes and cauliflower (if they're both pre-cooked -- if not, put the potatoes in a bit earlier than the cauliflower). If you didn't pre-cook your vegetables, you may find that periodically adding a splash of water helps them get soft. They need to be pretty soft so they're easy to pick up with bits of bread.

Stir-fry the vegetables in the oil for a little bit, then add 1/4 tsp turmeric and some ground chile powder (we used about 1/2 tsp, I think, but you may want more or less, as you like it). Different varieties of chiles have different flavors and different levels of spiciness, so be careful with that. Indian ground chiles are labeled "lal mirch" at the Indian grocery, and they are pretty hot but not very "warm" tasting. I think the closest American thing is ground cayenne pepper. Add some salt. There are a lot of vegetables in here, so I put in up to 1 tsp.

Finally, garnish it with some chopped cilantro. We forgot to take a picture at the end because we were too hungry. But this blogger added soy beans, too, which could be pretty tasty. Their final dish looked like this: