Potato and Capsicum Recipe | Aloo Shimla Mirch Sabzi Recipe

"What should I cook with these leftovers?" is a question I ask myself every evening when I cook dinner.  I mostly cook extra food during dinner to eat the same for the next lunch.  So I usually do not worry about cooking lunch or think much about the leftovers before then.  Sometimes it is leftovers of a little dal, some rice, some sabzi, and sometimes the leftovers are in the form of raw vegetables.

This one time I had half a capsicum, some chopped garlic, some cilantro, half an onion, and some lemon juice left from the previous day, as well as few dried up curry leaves and some green-chilies-turned-into-red-because-of-forgetting-to-keep-in-refrigerator from the previous week.

What should I cook?  Ummm.  May be I will add a potato to this and make aloo shimla mirch ki subzi?

shimla mirch aur aloo ki sabzi

Aloo Shimla Mirch Sabzi Recipe

serves 2

What you need (or whatever you may have):

1 Tbsp oil

½ tsp mustard seeds (rai), or cumin seeds (jeera), or both

2 dry red chilies, broken

Few curry leaves (kari patta)

1-2 green chilies (or green-turned-into-red chilies, in my case)

½ large onion = ~ ½ cup chopped

1 large potato = ~ ¾ cup chopped

1 tsp garlic chopped

½ large capsicum (bell pepper) = ~ ½ cup chopped

¼ tsp haldi (turmeric powder)

1 tsp dhania-jeera powder (coriander-cumin seed powder)

¾ tsp salt

½ tsp lemon juice (or ½ tsp dry mango powder = amchoor)

2 Tbsp roasted peanut powder

2 Tbsp cilantro chopped

How I cooked Aloo Shimla Mirch Sabzi with the leftover ingredients on hand:

Step 1                                                             Step 2                                                               Step 3

1.  Heat oil in a medium pan on medium heat.  Add mustard (or cumin, or both) + dry red chilies + curry leaves + green chilies + onion + potato + garlic.  Mix and cover pan with lid for 5 minutes, stirring once in a while.  Instead of parboiling potato because I did not have the time, I cook them along with onion and let them soften in the steam.

2.  When onion turns translucent or golden-brown and potato feels tender, add capsicum + haldi + dhania-jeera powder + salt.  Mix and cook, cover and cook, until capsicum cooked.

3.  Add peanut powder + lemon juice + cilantro.  Switch off heat, mix well, cover and let vegetables absorb the flavors.  Aloo Shimla Mirch ki Sabji is ready to be eaten with roti.

aloo aur shimla mirch ki sookhi sabzi  [potatoes and capsicum stir-fry]

I love how potatoes are so adaptable.  They can adjust with a vegetable (recipes with potato), or be turned into something sweet (potato halwa).  Or added in a soup or gravy to reduce excess salt.  Potatoes can be eaten roasted, baked, and mashed.  They can be applied on eyes to reduce dark circles.  Or sliced and fried into chips.

Figuratively, I want to be a potato.  Versatile, flexible, all-round.  =)

Bell Peppers (Capsicum) and Potato Stir-fry [Shimla Mirchi aur Aloo ki Subzi]

 Anyway...
 Your turn: with these leftovers in front of you, what would YOU have cooked?
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