Gobi Aloo Dum Pukht (cauliflower florets and potatoes slow cooked in yogurt sauce)

 

A friend asked me the other day if I knew any Indian vegan recipe that could be cooked in slow cooker. This recipe instantly jumped to my mind. Cauliflower is one of my favorite vegetables. When it comes to Indian cooking, its range is phenomenal. Thursday being our vegetarian day, I always try out different variations of the few vegetables my picky eaters do eat without complaint. Happily, cauliflower is one such produce they often consume without much ado.

I love cooking in crock pot. It gives me the feeling of hands-free cooking – if there is such a thing, with the added bonus of restaurant like flavors. Though I have mostly experimented with non-vegetarian dishes, some vegan recipes cooked in a crock pot are to die for. This is one of them. The cauliflower and the potato dum pukht, married in the juices rich with flavorful spices and herbs, is an aromatic relish that will delight your senses.

Prep Time: 15 Minutes

Cook time: 4 hours

Difficulty: Medium, Elaborate

Nutrition high points: Rich in potassium, Vitamin B6 and Vitamin C.

What you will need:

• A crock pot/slow cooker
• Cauliflower: 2 cups Florets cut length wise
• Potatoes: 3 medium cut like into wedges, much like thick fries
• (Sprinkle with salt and let them sit for 5 minutes)
• Onion: 1 cup, grated (strain it. You can add the water back later on).
• 1 tbsp. ginger garlic paste
• Yogurt: 3/4^th cup
• Green Chilies-5
• Salt: To taste
• Ghee (Clarified butter): ½ cup
• Fenugreek leaves: 2 tsp.
• 1 tbsp. cream
• Bay leaf – 1
• Cinnamon – 2” stick
• Cloves 4
• Black peppercorns: 6

Seasoning:

• asafoetida (Hing): a pinch
• 1 dry red chili whole
• 5-6 fenugreek seeds

Make a paste of the following spices with 1tbsp.water:

• 1 tsp. Coriander powder
• 1 tsp. cumin powder
• 1 tsp. red chili powder
• ½ tsp. turmeric powder
• ½ tsp. amchur (mango) powder
• ½ tsp. fenugreek powder
• A dash nutmeg powder (optional. It will bring a nutty flavor to the dish)

For garnish:

• 1 tbsp. cream
• Few leaves of cilantro (coriander leaves)
• 1 tomato cut into thin round wedges
• 1 tsp lemon juice

How I do it:

Stove-top:

• Heat ghee in a heavy bottomed pan.
• Fry potatoes till golden, drain and layer the crock pot with them.
• Fry cauliflower till golden and very lightly spotted, drain and top the potatoes.
• In the remaining ghee, add all the seasonings.
• When the fenugreek seeds crackle, add onion and fry onion till soft.
• Add ginger garlic paste and 1 green chili, slit, for a minute.
• Mix in the spice paste and stir well.
• Add in the whole spices: bay leaf, cinnamon, peppercorns and cloves.
• At this point, add the fenugreek leaves.
• Add salt.
• Fry the mixture for a minute. It will emit a nice aroma.
• Fold in 1 tbsp. of cream, and lower the heat.
• Stir in the whipped yogurt.
• Fry in for one minute, on low heat.

Over to the Crock pot:

• Transfer the yogurt sauce into the slow cooker (or crock pot, whatever it is that
  

  Sealing with dough – go around the whole area, pressing the edges of the dough as you work around the entire lid.

  you have), evenly covering the cauliflower and potatoes.

• Add 1 cup of water (you can add the onion water).
• Add rest of the green chilies, slit in the middle.

Mix 3 tbsp. of all-purpose flour with a little water and make soft dough.

• Cover the lid and seal it with the dough. Make sure there are no holes for the steam to seep through. and put it on high for half an hour.
• Put the crock pot on low.
• For next 3 hours, forget all about it. Just kidding.

After 3 hours of cooking, if it is still some time to go for lunch/dinner, turn the switch of the crock pot to warm. This dish is best eaten straight off the crock pot.

To serve: 

Serve garnished with cream, coriander leaves and tomato wedges. Finish with lemon juice. Gobi Aloo dum goes well with naan, tandoori roti, poori and basmati rice.

This was our dinner yesterday. This is a crock pot recipe, though I also cook without it. Unfortunately, almost towards the end I realized that instead of lowering the temperature of the crock pot, I had accidentally switched it off. Luckily, it wasn’t beyond repair, so we ended up with a pretty good dish.