Potato Curry with Flax and Quinoa

Tweet

Before I became aware of concepts like cutting carbs to lose weight , potatoes was one of my favorite vegetables and used to feature regularly in my kitchen. They also functioned as my favorite fall back plan, either when I ran out of ideas or the vegetable drawer in my refrigerator started to get empty. Unfortunately as is the case with many other foods I like...., potatoes too are neither very diet friendly nor superlatively healthy. So it rarely appears in my menu now and even when it does, it is included along with a chock full of other vegetables that satisfy my need for nutrition.

Yesterday though, I had a serious craving for some type of potato curry that I could use as filling for sandwiches that I planned for lunch. My mind refused to budge from the idea of making potatoes, so I decided to try and make it as nutritious as possible. And what can be more nutritious than a combination of sesame, flax, quinoa and peanuts. I dry roasted each of these along with other spices, powdered it and used it to spice up my curry. I absolutely adored how this curry turned out, it was very subtly flavored and tasted fantastic in sandwiches.I am sure this will taste just as good as a side for rice and dhal or stuffing for parathas (Stuffed Indian flat bread) or just to go with plain chapathis or rotis (Indian flat bread)




Click here for a printable view of this recipe

Ingredients and Method to make Potato Peas curry with flax and quinoa

4 medium white potatoes cooked and mashed (Yielded 2 cups of mashed potatoes)
1 cup green peas (either fresh or frozen)


For the ground spice mixture
3 tbsp raw or roasted unsalted peanuts
3 tbsp quinoa (see notes)
4 tbsp brown sesame seeds
1 1/2 tbsp coriander seeds (dhania)
3 tbsp flax seed meal (powdered flax seeds ) (see notes) ( also known as Alsi)
3 dry whole red chillies (or according to taste)
1/2 tbsp cumin seeds

2 tbsp oil
1 tsp cumin seeds

1/4 tsp turmeric powder
salt according to taste (I used approximately 1 1/4 tsp salt for this quantity)

Cook the potatoes with their skin either in a pressure cooker or on the stove top. Cool slightly, skin the potatoes and mash it roughly. This yielded me about 2 cups of mashed potatoes

In a heavy bottomed pan dry roast each of the ingredients mentioned in the ground spice mixture until it turns reddish/ brownish and exudes aroma. If using roasted unsalted peanuts skip the roasting for the peanuts. Keep the roasted ingredients aside to cool thoroughly.

In the same heavy bottomed pan, heat oil and add cumin seeds to it. When the cumin seeds splutter, add turmeric powder and green peas to it and saute the green peas until it is soft and cooked but not mushy. ( I used frozen thawed green peas so it cooked within a few minutes, fresh green peas may take a little longer to cook. If using fresh green peas sprinkle a little water to cook it faster)

Powder the roasted spices in a spice grinder until it turns into a fairly fine powder and keep aside.

The copyright of this content belongs to Veginspirations.comAdd the cooked mashed potatoes to this, then add salt to taste and sprinkle the spice powder and mix well.

Let this mixture cook for a few minutes until all the flavors blend.

Serve hot with Indian flat bread (roti's) or as a side dish with rice or use it as a filling in sandwiches (as I did.... )

Serves approximately 4

Notes

In case you do not have quinoa try using 1 1/2 tbsp of flax seed/ flax seed meal and 1 1/2 tbsp sesame seed in its place

I used flax seed meal (powdered flax seeds) because I had that available, you could just as easily use flax seeds and powder it fine along with the other spices