Alu gobi (potatoes and cauliflower) is one of the better known Indian vegetarian dishes, and you'll find dozens of recipes for it, many asking for ridiculously small quantities of spices. That's exactly the reason for this one: it's the one I plan to make, so it makes sense to have a single recipe to refer to. I derived it from “the classic 1000 indian recipes” by wendy hobson (and yes, the names are all printed without capitals on the cover). The original recipe calls for about a fifth of the spices mentioned here.

Ingredients

quantity		ingredient	step
		ghee, for frying
30 g		garlic	1
30 g		ginger	1
150 g		onion	1
1 g		salt	1
600 g		cauliflower	2
500 g		potato	2
10 g		coriander seed	3
10 g		cumminseed	3
1.5 g		chili powder	3
5 g		garam masala	3
10 g		turmeric	3
500 ml		yoghurt	4
50 g		coriander leaves	4
25 g		mint leaves	4
2 g		cumminseed, whole	6
2 g		yellow mustard seeds	6
5 g		black mustard seeds	6
50 ml		lemon juice	7

Procedure

1. Blend garlic, ginger and onion in a blender, add salt.
2. Chop potato into 1 cm cubes and cauliflower into florets of a similar size. Rub in the onion mixture and marinate for at least 30 minutes.
3. Dry-fry the cumminseed and coriander seed until aromatic, then grind and mix with the chili, garam masala and turmeric.
4. Blend the yoghurt, coriander leaves and mint leaves to a paste.
5. Gently fry the potato and cauliflower in ghee for about 20 minutes, until golden.
6. Fry the mustard seeds in ghee until the mustard seeds pop. Add the whole cumminseed and stir a few seconds until hot. Add the powdered spices until warm. Add the yoghurt paste and bring to the boil. Add the vegetables and sauté for about 15 minutes, or until the potato is cooked; this can take longer than expected because of the consistency of the paste.
7. Add lemon juice and serve.