Food talk
Radish delight

  Pushpesh Pant brings us alu muli, the pair that comes to the rescue in lean winter months

Potato started its journey centuries ago from the Andes — Peru to be precise — more than 500 years ago to conquer the world. It is indeed a root with myriad splendours. It became the staple in Ireland and once a crop failure resulted in a painful famine that revolutionised the politics of the land.

Potatoes are quite rightly paired with memes fats, fish and, at times, fowl to balance the high protein meal with useful ‘carbs’. You don’t have to feel guilty every time you mouth the French fries with the burger or gobble the chips with the fish.

Potato hash is welcome by most of us with sausages and bacons accompanied by eggs to order for breakfast. In India, the import that came with the Portuguese is listed among the vegetables. As a matter of fact it is the most popular of the subzi that can join hands with almost any other veggie — matar, tamatar, methi, palak, gobhi, baigan and bhindi. We have always wondered why some combos are not tried and relished oftener. Alu-muli springs readily to mind. True in the hill villages of Uttarakhand, this faithful pair comes to the rescue in lean winter months and heroic efforts are made in the kitchen to break the monotony of dahi wali alu muli but this recipe is certainly not the most shining gem of the regional repertoire. What we bring to our readers this week is a reddish variation on the radish theme.

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