Potatoes in Mustard Sauce
1 May
A traditional recipe from Bihar/Bengal that revels in the heady potency of mustard. If you like the sharpness of mustard and mustard oil, you are in for a treat with sarson wale aloo (potatoes in mustard sauce).
As I made this curry I was reminded of the opening lines of a recent post on Sublime Palate, about influences that alter the nature of traditional recipes. In Bihar, the default cooking oil is mustard oil - many I know back home find dishes cooked in any other oil tasteless. Diametrically opposite are a some of my non-Bihari friends who will not come within 3 feet of any dish cooked in mustard oil.
I started to cook when I was sharing my apartment with friends from other regions in India, and we came to a common agreement to use peanut oil. That habit stuck, and now I use mustard oil only when I’m cooking an out-and-out east Indian dish such as sarson wale aloo. [Or shall we say, as they would in Bihar sarson wala aloo?]
You Need:
- Potatoes – 6 small/4 medium, boiled
- Tomatoes – 3
- Water – 1 cup
- Mustard seeds* – 2 teaspoons
- Turmeric – 1/2 teaspoon
- Red chili powder – 1 teaspoon
- Garlic – 5 cloves
- Mustard oil – 1.5 tablespoons
*Black mustard seeds have a more pungent flavor than yellow mustard seeds. For a milder taste, use small-sized yellow mustard seeds.
How To Make Potatoes in Mustard Sauce:
Skin and slice the potatoes into 1/4 cm disks or crumble them coarsely.
Using the side of your knife, crush garlic. Chop tomatoes.
Dry-grind mustard seeds in the chutney grinder, or pound them into coarse powder using a mortar and pestle.
In a kadhai, heat mustard oil to smoking point. Add garlic.
When the garlic turns golden add ground mustard. Set the heat to low.
Let mustard fry and release its aroma – for about 30 seconds to a minute, make sure it does not burn.
Add chopped tomatoes.
Follow with salt, turmeric powder and red chili powder.
Cook covered for 5 minutes on medium heat.
Stir, add chopped potatoes and cook covered on medium heat for 6-8 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Add a cup of water (more if you want the sauce thinner), bring to a boil and simmer covered for another 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Let it stand covered for another 15 minutes. Serve potatoes in mustard sauce with rice/rotis and raita.
Meal below: cabbage paratha, potato in mustard sauce, rajma masala, methi dahi, carrot sticks.
Notes:
Try more recipes with mustard oil: red pumpkin mangodi curry, green chili pickle, tomato ginger peanut chutney.
My parents are home. Which basically means we have lots of traditional Bihari food :) We just had a similar fish curry today. Hope to post about it soon! Your sarso wala aaloo looks so yum!! Gotta ask Mom to make it:)
Enjoy your parents’ stay. Nothing like having Mom cook for you :)
Hi,
Did you use yellow mustard seeds or the black ones??
Hi Vaishnavi, I have tried this recipe with yellow and black mustard seeds on different occasions – both were hits! Black mustard seeds have the more pungent taste though. If you’re not so keen on a mustard-y taste, stick with yellow.
Thanks for the awesome Bihari receipe
My pleasure!
Tried the recipe.. Used black mustard seeds…but my gravy turned out to be bitter…what could have gone wrong?
Hi Mahima, Black mustard seeds have a more pungent flavor than yellow. If you want it milder, go for the small-sized yellow mustard seeds.
I will add a note about this to the main post. Thanks for writing.
Hi, what type of potatoes should i use? waxy new or floury? thanks!
Hi Heather,
Your question made me think – thanks for asking!
We want potatoes that crumble post-boiling, but don’t disintegrate totally on long cooking.
Plus they should have a neutral potato taste and the ability to absorb flavors from the spices.
Appearance-wise, potatoes with a yellow tint give a nice contrast to the mustard-speckled red of the curry.
Any varieties of potato that fit the above criteria will work.