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Dum Aloo or Aloo Dum, a rich and special dish in Kashmiri Cuisine and also in Punjabi Cuisine. The baby potatoes are first deep fried, then cooked slowly at low flame in a gravy with spices. Nowadays we all are concerned about our diet and hence deep frying potatoes can be skipped or we can do shallow frying so that original taste remains in the dish. The main ingredient to bring in more taste to the gravy is cashews. Cashew paste gives rich flavour to the gravy. We can alternate cashews with almonds or poppy seeds also. Dum Aloo can be served with any pulao varieties or with any Indian Bread. Let's see how to concoct this tasty dum aloo.

Table of Contents

Tips for making perfect Dum Aloo:

In this version, I have precooked potatoes for 2 whistles in pressure cooker. We can also boil the potatoes in open pan till they are al dente (90% cooked). Once potatoes are parboiled, it would be best to prick the potatoes with a fork. This pricking helps the gravy seep though the potatoes and spices gets nicely absorbed by the potatoes.
Parboiled potatoes are usually deep fried in restaurants. But we can just shallow fry it.
I have used baby potatoes, we can also use regular potatoes and cube it.
I have ground onions tomatoes separately. This just to get rid of tomato skin. We can grind onion, tomato and green chili together and then cook well. We can saute the onions and tomatoes without grinding but the grinding makes the gravy looks richer and thicker.
Already we are adding tomato puree so we need to make sure the yogurt is not sour.
Cashew paste gives rich taste and makes the gravy thicker. We can exclude this nut paste and add cream at the final stage.
I have added Kashmiri red chili powder to get nice color. We can add regular red chili powder also.

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Recipe Card for Dum Aloo:

INSTRUCTIONS WITH STEP BY STEP PICTURES:

COOKING POTATO

Take baby potatoes in a vessel. Wash it thoroughly, add fresh water and pressure cook for 2 whistles.

Once the baby potatoes are cooked, peel the skin. Using a for, gently poke holes on all sides of cooked potato.

Heat 2 tablespoon of oil, add the baby potatoes. Fry the baby potatoes in low flame till they are golden brown.

Keep flipping the potatoes on all sides to make sure they are evenly fried on all the sides. Keep these fried potatoes aside.

PREPARING ONION-TOMATO GRAVY

Heat 2 tablespoon of oil in a pan. Add whole garam masala (cinnamon, cardamom, clove), chopped onions along with ginger-garlic paste and saute the onions till they are translucent

Next, add cashews, chopped tomatoes and cook the tomatoes till they are mushy.

Allow the onion-tomato gravy to cool off completely and then take it in a mixer jar.

Grind it to a smooth paste and set this paste aside.

PREPARING CURD MIXTURE

Take curd in a bowl. Add coriander powder, cumin powder, red chili powder, garam masala and give a good mix.

Set this curd mixture aside.

FINISHING DUM ALOO

Heat 3 tablespoon of oil in a pan. Add cumin seeds and allow it to sputter. Next, add onion-tomato paste and give a good mix. Cover and cook for 5 mins.