Aloo Methi sabzi (Fenugreek potato stir-fry)

Aloo Methi sabzi or potato and fenugreek leaves stir fry is another gem from the North Indian cuisine. The aloo-methi has a lot of flavour with the bitterness of methi and softness and sweetness of potatoes. This is the reason why this Punjabi dish is cooked with minimal ingredients. Only a handful of goodies go into this rich, aromatic yet humble dish. 

I have grown up seeing my mother make most of the sabzi(s) (stir fry veggies) in the mustard oil just like my late grand mother. Which made me wonder why mustard oil for veggies? When I started cooking and sometimes used to make sabzi in normal cooking oil I could feel the difference. The taste of mustard would be missing and the stir fry vegetables would seem flavorless.

Cooking in slightly burnt mustard oil adds its own pungent bitterness to a stir fry and makes the dish all the more flavorful with its taste of mustard.

Methi or fenugreek has its own bitter dense fragrance. It is one of my favourite food fragrance and I can tell any dish only by smelling at it that it has got sookhi methi or kasoori methi (or dry fenugreek leaves roasted and crushed).

This green vegetable is packed with nutrition and is a rich source of iron, folic acid and fiber. It is available in Delhi in the winter season.

Taking a stroll down my parents' home I can smell the fragrance of methi being prepared for breakfast as methi parathas (See my mother-in-law's methi paratha recipe here) or as a veg stir fry or being added to curry or daal to lend it a bitter, aromatic and roasted flavour.

Here is the complete recipe to make this super quick and simple dish that evokes the memory of a cold winter morning from my childhood, just how my mother makes it!

Ingredients:

Methi leaves 3-4 cups, plucked, washed and chopped

3-4 medium-sized potatoes, cubed

2 medium-sized tomatoes, finely chopped

3-4 tbsp mustard oil

2-3 green chilies, chopped

1 tsp coriander powder

1 tsp red chili powder

salt, to taste

Cooking time: 30min

Preparation time: 15min

Serves: 4

Method:

1) Take a big wok and pour in 2-3 tbsps of mustard oil. Let it burn a little and then turn of the gas.

2) Carefully put finely chopped tomatoes and green chili into it. Turn on the gas and saute it on medium flame.

3) When the tomatoes seem to have got a paste-like consistency, you will notice the oil has separated from it. At this stage add in salt, red chili powder and coriander powder. Stir.

 4) Time for the cubed potatoes to go in. Mix well with the tadka. On low flame, cover for 3-4 min for the potatoes to soften, stir in between to avoid potatoes from burning.

5) Now add in the methi leaves! Stir well and cover for 5-10 min, stirring every now and then.

Aloo-methi sabzi is ready!

Serve hot fresh chapattis or paratha!

How do you like to cook your methi sabzi? What are the other ways you use these wonderful fenugreek leaves? In making puri, paratha or mathri? Or do you love adding kasoori methi to your daal makhni and soups?

Please do share your thoughts about this recipe with me.

Thanks for reading! :-)