Aloo Posto: Poppy Seed Spiced Potatoes
28 Jul
Aloo posto is a popular Bengali dish – potatoes cooked in poppy seed paste, served with pooris or plain boiled rice. This delicately flavored curry gets its spice kick from two other trademark Bengali ingredients: mustard oil and panch phoron.
Poppy seeds are rich in minerals and contain fine oils – when soaked and ground, these tiny seeds lend a fragrant nuttiness to potatoes.
A meal of rice and aloo posto – comfort food at its best.
You Need:
- Potatoes – 4 medium-sized
- White poppy seeds – 2 tablespoons [buy here]
- Green chilies – 2
- Turmeric powder – 1 teaspoon [buy here]
- Salt – to taste
- Panch phoron – 1 teaspoon [buy here]
- Mustard oil – 2 teaspoons [buy here]
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How To Make Aloo Posto:
Soak the poppy seeds in half a cup of water for an hour. Throw away the excess water and transfer the soaked poppy seeds to a grinder. Grind the poppy seeds to paste.[1]
When poppy seeds are done, add the green chilies and grind again.
Boil the potatoes – up to one whistle on high flame in a pressure cooker. Allow to cool to room temperature. If you have some boiled potatoes in the fridge already, perfect – potatoes retain their shape better if they’re cool when they go into this dish.
Cut the potatoes into about 2-cm pieces.
Heat the mustard oil in a pan to smoking point. Splutter panch phoron, wait for a few seconds (till the methi seeds turn brown) and then add the poppy seed-green chili paste. Cook for 4 minutes, stirring to make sure that the paste does not stick to the pan.
Mix turmeric powder, cook for another minute, then add half a cup of water and salt.
Now tip in the potato cubes – mix gently to coat the potatoes with the masala taking care not to mash the potatoes.
Stirring occasionally, cook covered for ten minutes till the dish is dry and the potatoes are well-coated with the poppy seed masala.
Aloo posto is ready to eat.
Serve aloo posto hot with pooris or boiled rice and dal.
Notes:
Making poppy seed paste takes about six cycles of open-lid-turn-insides-around in my grinder – poppy seeds don’t offer themselves easily to being turned to paste. A mortar and pestle does a better job!
Try a few other unusual potato recipes from the blog archives:
Yep, those tiny things do not like to be ground up. I like to crack them up a bit in a coffee grinder. Your curry is beautiful! Love this Bengali fave.
Thanks! It’s a favorite of mine too.
My use to cook it regulatory at home. It was always delicious and am a fan of this recipe.
@Punam Paul: Good to hear that :)
Just made it. Love it. It was so flavorful. Never really had poppy seed except for poppy seed bread. When I was making the paste, I tried the grinder at first, but I didn’t think I was making progress. I didn’t realize how tiny the seeds were, so I switched to a mortar and pestle. Way easier to make the paste.
Hi Amaury, I know right! Much easier to go the classic mortar-and-pestle way with poppy seed.
Happy to hear you loved the recipe!