Wadi Aloo

Hello, boys and girls!

Welcome to cooking with Varun! Remember when you were little (some of you may have to think farther back than the others.. it's okay.. I'll wait) and you used to play games like, 'I declare the war against..', 'P-O-L-O', 'Freeze & Melt', among others? When we were younger (so much younger than today), a bunch of us friends would meet in the evenings, generally after a day of cricket or football, and sit around our housing society and chill until the ants in our pants got us up and going again. Given that it was too dark to play a ball game (not that we didn't try), we'd play these games to keep ourselves occupied until it was time to head home for dinner.

One of my favourite games to play was hide and seek. Now now, don't shake your head, it wasn't your average run of the mill game, it was cutthroat and competitive. More often than not, a scapegoat would be wordlessly agreed upon and set up to be the denner or 'it' (I'd say seeker but then I'd start thinking of Quidditch.. With the chasers, and the beaters, and the bludgers, and how Gryffindor won the cup..). The poor boy (I won't lie, I've been that boy on several occasions) would count while the rest shamelessly smashed all the defined hiding boundaries and ventured far and wide leaving the poor bloke wondering where everyone had gone. From jumping into people's backyards, swapping shirts, and climbing trees, everything was fair game! There was an incident when my best (and rather chubby) friend, Parsi Drama Queen, shinned up the tree directly above the denner's spot hoping to hop down quickly and save the first person found, when instead, the branch he was sitting on decided it had had enough and broke clean off, bringing him crashing to the ground in a tangle of wood, leaves, flowers, and person, and he smacked his ankle on the railing below, resulting in 3 hairline fractures on the same bone. Another time, Parsi Drama Queen was the first to be found and did not want to be the denner, but with everyone else found except me, he took to shouting pleas of rescue (and threats if I failed). I was crouched in the bushes not far from the denner's spot, where the denner, my friend, Mr. Missed Call, was hovering, licking his lips at the prospect of liberation, when I started creeping towards the spot to make my rescue. Hearing the rustle of the leaves,  Mr. Missed Call's ears pricked up and he came to investigate. It was dark and the bushes were rather thick so he squinted his eyes to try to see better, when in my panic to not get found, I did the first thing that came to my head. I mewed. Like a cat. Loudly. Mr. Missed Call stopped in his tracks, looking rather puzzled until I mewed again (rather piteously this time) and miraculously, he thought that there really was a cat in the bushes and turned to look elsewhere. Spotting my window, I leaped heroically out of the bushes, rushed to the spot, slammed the 'save' in and rescued Parsi Drama Queen. As Mr. Missed Call's groans of pure angst echoed off the walls, I stood tall (all 4 feet of me) and relished my victory (and Parsi Drama Queen's dialogues of adoration).

Not unlike hide and seek, which is a favourite childhood game, this is a recipe to one of my favourite childhood dishes. Eaten with piping hot jeera rice, to me, there are few dishes that can even hope to give it any competition for a Saturday lunch.

For my Wadi Aloo, you will need the following:

Wadi	2-3 pieces (available in most Indian stores the world over)
Potatoes	2 large (or 3 medium)
Onion	1 large (or 2 medium)
Tomatoes	1 large (or 1 1/2 medium)
Tomato pureé	shot
Red chilli powder	2-3 tsp
Coriander powder	3-4 tsp
Jeera powder	1-2 tsp
Yoghurt	2 tsp
Salt	to taste
Oil

Prep:

1. Quarter the potatoes. (Or cut them into 6 pieces depending on their size.)
2. Blitz the onion.
3. Blitz the tomatoes.

Method:

1. Turn on the gas.
2. Bung a pressure cooker on.
3. Splash in some oil.
4. Count to 20.
5. Spoon in the onion.
6. Step back until the hissing dies down.
7. Drop in the wadis.
8. Break the wadis into smaller pieces after they've softened a smidge.
9. Mix.
10. Cook until the onion is brown.
11. Throw in the chilli powder, coriander powder, and jeera powder.
12. Mix well.
13. Pour in the blitzed tomatoes.
14. Mix.
15. Cook until the oil separates from the mixture.
16. Add in the shot of tomato puree.
17. Plop in the potatoes.
18. Add in the yoghurt. 
19. Sprinkle in the salt.
20. Mix.
21. Add in a cup of water.
22. Slap the lid on.
23. Crank the burner up to high.
24. Wait for 1 whistle. (More than that and your potatoes will be mush!)
25. Daydream.
26. Snap out of it as the cooker starts to whistle.
27. Drop the heat to low.
28. Wait 15 seconds.
29. Turn the cooker off.
30. Wait until the steam leaves the cooker.
31. Open the lid.
32. Take a deep breath.
33. Cough.
34. Adjust the gravy if you need to. (Add i or dry off water.)
35. Serve with jeera rice.
36. Stuff face.
37. Bask in the glory of your successfully executed dish.

Tip: If you don't have a pressure cooker, try par boiling the potatoes before adding them into the masala and then simmer until they are cooked all the way through.

And remember, overeating is a myth. A full tummy is a happy tummy!