Malay tamarind chilli potatoes with sun-dried tomatoes

Malaysia is a melting pot of culinary styles from India, China, and Thailand. It also served as an essential port for trade and lay along the spice route, so foreign traders and ingredients influenced it. This land is an amalgamation of local and neighbouring culinary styles, ingredients, and folklore around food.

This potato dish is a very typical example. The influence of both Asia, sambal oelek, India, curry leaves and mustard seeds, and the West, sun-dried tomatoes, is present. The dish is a flavour bomb and plays with the five essential flavours of the Malay palate, sweet, from the sun-dried tomatoes, heat, from the chilli, sour from the tamarind, bitter from the curry leaves and salt in perfect balance. This is a simple dish to make, but one that will make your guests happy. It reminded me of a dish similar to one from South India called Potato Song.

Carol Selva Rajah was a celebrity chef, food writer, cookbook author and TV personality living in Sydney, Australia. She has written 10 books and was the first woman chef to be invited to cook at the prestigious James Beard Foundation in New York. This book specializes in Malay cuisine and all its diversity and grandeur. The recipes are very authentic and, like this one, turn out beautifully. This book is an excellent introduction to this cuisine and the culture and belongs on your shelf.

For more recipes from this cookbook, click here. 

Ingredients:

4 potatoes

1 teaspoon salt

8 cups of water

1 teaspoon fennel seeds

1 tablespoon cumin seeds

2 tablespoons ghee or oil

1 teaspoon mustard seeds

A pinch of asafoetida

10-12 curry leaves

2 tablespoons sambal oelek

5 garlic cloves, minced

3 tablespoons tomato paste

1 tablespoon tamarind concentrate

Salt, to taste

1/2 cup sun-dried tomatoes, diced

Cilantro, to garnish

Add the potatoes to a pot with the water and salt. Bring to a boil and simmer for 30-45 minutes until the potatoes are very soft. Check the potatoes by piercing them with a skewer; they are done if the skewer goes through with minimal resistance. Remove from the water and cool. Peel, cube into 1-inch dice and set aside.

Lightly toast the anise and cumin seeds until aromatic and fragrant—cool and pound in a mortar until you have a coarse powder. Set aside.

Heat the oil on low heat in a wok or wide frying pan. Add the mustard seeds, they will pop in 20 seconds. Add the cumin mixture, asafoetida and curry leaves. Fry for 10 seconds, taking care not to burn the spices.

Add the sambal oelek and garlic and fry for 3-4 minutes until the sambal oelek is aromatic and the garlic is no longer raw. Add the tomato, tamarind, and salt and cook for 3 minutes until the oils have begun to pool at the edges of the sauce.

Add the potatoes and sun-dried tomatoes and cook for 3-4 minutes until the sauce clings to the potatoes heavily.

Serve hot, garnished with cilantro.