Jeera Aloo: A Taste Of India

Are you a fan of exploring recipes from different cultures? I know I am! One of my go-to sources for Indian cuisine recipes is the blog Simple Gluten Free Kitchen.  The talented Balvinder offers a delightful array of all kinds of recipes, many of which are inspired by her Indian heritage. Of course all of her recipes also meet gluten-free standards.

Recently, I came across an interesting recipe for Jeera Aloo (cumin potatoes) on her blog. We love potatoes and enjoy Indian spices, so I  had to give this tempting recipe a try!

Indian cooking often relies on a wide array of spices. While I had many of the spices for this recipe on hand (cumin seed, turmeric, coriander seed, chili powder, fresh cilantro, and fresh ginger ), there was one particular spice I didn’t have.

Balvinder explained on her blog, 

"My recipe calls for Amchur powder, if you can not find it use lime powder or may be just lemon juice but it won't match the depth of flavor that you get from dry mango powder. "

I’d never encountered "amchur" before, which is dried mango powder. I found a container of organic amchur on Amazon for under $9. The flavor was quite intriguing, and I'm glad ordered it. I'm excited to find more recipes that use this unique ingredient.

I did make a few tweaks to Balvinder’s recipe to suit our own taste preferences. I omitted the coriander, as it’s not a favorite of mine, went easier on the green chili, swapped out the oil for vegetable broth to keep the recipe oil-free, and added additional freshly squeezed lemon juice because we’re big lemon lovers.

We enjoyed this spicy potato side dish. It was both easy to prepare and delicious.  Thanks Balvinder!

 You can find Balvinder's beautiful photos of this recipe as well as her recipe here at:   Jeera Aloo: (recipe link) She used the little round potatoes which was quite pretty and uniform. Some of my potatoes were bigger and not uniform , so her suggestion was to cut them in half, which I did.

Do you like Indian food? Do you ever cook it? 

I very seldom use a recipe in my cooking of food as opposed to baking which I always use a recipe. I usually have a main ingredient or two and my creative juices flow and I make it into a recipe. Thus starting a blog to actually record and remember my own recipe creations.  But this is not the case with Indian cooking. I'm not that familiar, so I usually need to follow a specific recipe. 

Here are some of the Indian cuisine recipes that I have made and posted in the past. Not being able to tolerate a lot of "heat" , I tend to go easy on the chilis. 

Photo of Indian Aloo Baingan

Tomato Onion Dal  

Vegetable Pakora Appetizers  ( baked, easy, delicious, oil-free)

Cauliflower Aloo Gobi - Instant Pot and Stove Top

Indian Aloo Baingan - Potatoes and Eggplant 

Savory Indian Vegetable Pancakes 

Tomato Soup Indian Style  (great with ripe summer tomatoes)

Ayurvedic Tea with Indian Spices  (soothing and relaxing)

Mango Cardamom Lassi  ( A healthy sweet summer treat)