Potato cury / Dahi alooWhether mashed, baked or roasted, people often consider potatoes as comfort food. It is an important food staple and the number one vegetable crop in the world. Potatoes are available year-round as they are harvested somewhere every month of the year.
The potato belongs to the Solanaceae or nightshade family whose other members include tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, and tomatillos. They are the swollen portion of the underground stem which is called a tuber and is designed to provide food for the green leafy portion of the plant. If allowed to flower and fruit, the potato plant will bear an inedible fruit resembling a tomato.
Potato cury / Dahi aloo
Hi friends! a very easy to prepare recipe. Dahi Aloo/ potato curry with puris was everyone’s favorite dish for breakfast/ brunch, especially in the olden days, when people lived in joint families and puris were considered to be the quickest to make.
Preparation Time: 15 minutes
Cooking Time: 6-7 minutes
Serves : 4
Ingredients:
- 200 gms potatoes boiled and peeled
- 1/2 tsp cumin seeds /jeera
- 1/2 tsp fennel seeds /saunf, powdered
- 1/4 tsp asafetida/hing
- 1/2 tsp red chili powder
- 1/2 tsp coriander powder
- 1/2 tsp cumin
- 1/2 tsp turmeric powder /haldi
- 1 1/2 cup curds / yogurt/dahi , whisked
- 1 tbsp olive oil/ or any other cooking medium
- 1/2 tsp salt / or salt to taste
- 2 tbsp green coriander , finely chopped
Method :
Step 1.
Boil the potatoes. Peel and cut the potatoes in small cubes in a mixing bowl. Keep aside.
Step 2.
Heat the oil in a pan and add the cumin seeds and asafetida. When the cumin crackles, add the, fennel seeds powder, coriander powder, chili powder and turmeric powder and sauté for a few seconds.
Step 3.
Add the boiled and cubed potatoes, salt and sauté till the spices /masala coats the potatoes evenly.
Step 4.
Add whisked curd mix and stirring continuously bring to a boil. Switch off the stove. Serve hot, garnish with the finely chopped coriander.
Note: Very good accompaniment with this curry is Puris / Indian bread .
Health benefits of potatoes:
Potatoes are a very popular food source. Unfortunately, most people eat potatoes in the form of greasy French fries or potato chips, and even baked potatoes are typically loaded down with fats such as butter, sour cream, melted cheese and bacon bits. Such treatment can make even baked potatoes a potential contributor to a heart attack. But take away the extra fat and deep frying, and a baked potato is an exceptionally healthful low calorie, high fiber food that offers significant protection against cardiovascular disease and cancer.
Our food ranking system qualified potatoes as a very good source of vitamin B6 and a good source of potassium, copper, vitamin C, manganese, phosphorus, niacin, dietary fiber, and pantothenic acid.
Potatoes also contain a variety of phytonutrients that have antioxidant activity. Among these important health-promoting compounds are carotenoids, flavonoids, and caffeic acid, as well as unique tuber storage proteins, such as patatin, which exhibit activity against free radicals.
Blood-Pressure Lowering Potential
UK scientists at the Institute for Food Research have identified blood pressure-lowering compounds called kukoamines in potatoes. Previously only found in Lycium chinense, an exotic herbal plant whose bark is used to make an infusion in Chinese herbal medicine, kukoamines were found in potatoes using a new type of research called metabolomics.
Until now, when analyzing a plant’s composition, scientists had to know what they were seeking and could typically look for 30 or so known compounds. Now, metabolomic techniques enable researchers to find the unexpected by analyzing the 100s or even 1000s of small molecules produced by an organism.
“Potatoes have been cultivated for thousands of years, and we thought traditional crops were pretty well understood,” said IFR food scientist Dr Fred Mellon, “but this surprise finding shows that even the most familiar of foods might conceal a hoard of health-promoting chemicals.” Another good reason to center your diet around the World’s Healthiest Foods!
In addition to potatoes, researchers looked at tomatoes since they belong to the same plant family—Solanaceae—as Lycium chinense. Metabolomic assays also detected kukoamine compounds in tomatoes.
The IFR scientists found higher levels of kukoamines and related compounds than some of the other compounds in potatoes that have a long history of scientific investigation. However, because they were previously only noted in Lycium chinense, kukoamines have been little studied. Researchers are now determining their stability during cooking and dose response (how much of these compounds are needed to impact health).
Vitamin B6—Building Your Cells
If only for its high concentration of vitamin B6—1 medium potato contains over one-half of a milligram of this important nutrient—the potato earns high marks as a health-promoting food.
Vitamin B6 is involved in more than 100 enzymatic reactions. Enzymes are proteins that help chemical reactions take place, so vitamin B6 is active virtually everywhere in the body. Many of the building blocks of protein, amino acids, require B6 for their synthesis, as do the nucleic acids used in the creation of our DNA. Because amino and nucleic acids are such critical parts of new cell formation, vitamin B6 is essential for the formation of virtually all new cells in the body. Heme (the protein center of our red blood cells) and phospholipids (cell membrane components that enable messaging between cells) also depend on vitamin B6 for their creation.
Vitamin B6—Brain Cell and Nervous System Activity
Vitamin B6 plays numerous roles in our nervous system, many of which involve neurological (brain cell) activity. B6 is necessary for the creation of amines, a type of messaging molecule or neurotransmitter that the nervous system relies on to transmit messages from one nerve to the next. Some of the amine-derived neurotransmitters that require vitamin B6 for their production are serotonin, a lack of which is linked to depression; melatonin, the hormone needed for a good night’s sleep; epinephrine and norepinephrine, hormones that help us respond to stress; and GABA, which is needed for normal brain function.
Vitamin B6—Cardiovascular Protection
Vitamin B6 plays another critically important role in methylation, a chemical process in which methyl groups are transferred from one molecule to another. Many essential chemical events in the body are made possible by methylation, for example, genes can be switched on and turned off in this way. This is particularly important in cancer prevention since one of the genes that can be switched on and off is the tumor suppressor gene, p53. Another way that methylation helps prevent cancer is by attaching methyl groups to toxic substances to make them less toxic and encourage their elimination from the body.
Methylation is also important to cardiovascular health. Methylation changes a potentially dangerous molecule called homocysteine into other, benign substances. Since homocysteine can directly damage blood vessel walls greatly increasing the progression of atherosclerosis, high homocysteine levels are associated with a significantly increased risk for heart attack and stroke. Eating foods rich in vitamin B6 can help keep homocysteine levels low. In addition, diets high in vitamin B6-rich foods are associated with overall lower rates of heart disease, even when homocysteine levels are normal, most likely because of all the other beneficial activities of this energetic B vitamin.
A single baked potato will also provide you with over 3 grams of fiber, but remember the fiber in potatoes is mostly in their skin. If you want the cholesterol-lowering, colon cancer preventing, and bowel supportive effects of fiber, be sure to eat the potato’s flavorful skin as well as its creamy center.
Vitamin B6—Athletic Performance
Vitamin B6 is also necessary for the breakdown of glycogen, the form in which sugar is stored in our muscle cells and liver, so this vitamin is a key player in athletic performance and endurance.
Ref.http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=48
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