Dhania Dum Aloo - Potatoes in Coriander-Sauce

A delicious dish that makes the regular potatoes much more exciting and healthy!

How to make Dhania Dum Aloo?

The first step of preparation is as usual the washing of ingredients. Wash your potatoes, the coriander and the mint leaves. After that you peel the potatoes and then use a fork or a toothpick to make thin but deep holes into the potatoes which will help them get cooked quicker and which will fill with the sauce and make the potatoes even more delicious.

The next thing that one needs to do is to pick the coriander leaves and the mint leaves off their stems. You can use the thin stems of the coriander but the thick ones have to go out – they won’t taste nice. It is good if you have a helper for this, otherwise it can take quite a while.

Once it is done though, you can peel the ginger and then mash the ginger together with the coriander leaves and the mint leaves to a nice paste. Add the carom seeds and make it a puree-like paste.

At this point you can place a deep pan or a wok onto your stove and heat up the oil in it. When it is hot, add the cumin seeds and roast them a bit until they slightly change colour. Add the nutmeg and straight away the potatoes, too. Stir the potatoes shortly in the pan or wok and then cover it with a lid. Let the potatoes start cooking on low flame for about five minutes.

In the meantime you take a separate bowl and mix the powdered spices: garam masala, cumin powder, coriander powder, turmeric powder, mango powder and salt. With a little bit of water or, if you like it sour, lemon juice, you make a paste out of these spices as well and once it is nicely mixed, you put the paste into the coriander. Add the rest of the water and mix the sauce well.

Now you can take the lid off and stir the potatoes once more before you add the sauce into them. Turn the heat a bit up and let your dish cook on medium heat until the potatoes are soft. You stir and after about fifteen minutes you check from time to time whether the potatoes are done. You can stick a knife into one of them and will know whether it is soft.

And once the potatoes are soft and done, switch off your stove, take your Dhania Dum Aloo out of the pot and serve them fresh and hot.

Enjoy your meal!

Ayurvedic Benefits

This dish is strong in pacifying the pitta dosha, as both, potatoes and coriander, regulate and reduce pitta. For those who think about the fact that both of them are Vata increasing, this is why we have added those amounts of cumin and ginger – to reduce this effect and make it a dish that can be eaten by people of the Vata dosha, too. If you look at the Kapha dosha, you see that coriander increases it while the potatoes pacify Kapha. So that is balanced as well and you can enjoy a dish that reduces the heat, the acidity and the bile in your body.