Aloo Gobi

I made Aloo Gobi two nights ago, for the first time. If you don't know what it is, it's an Indian dish that's made from potatoes and cauliflower (apparently, the name is literally, potato cauliflower, or vice versa). Basically, it's potatoes, cauliflower, tomatoes, onion, garlic, ginger, and various spices (cardamom, cumin, cloves, fennel, and cinnamon, I think, were the big ones, with turmeric for the ridiculous yellow). Turned out ok - a little bland, but the right notes were there. I kinda half-assed it, because we a.) didn't have a reliable recipe, and b.) were missing cilantro, which is a pretty strong note in the final garnish.

I ended up making the "Garam Masala," which was the spice mixture that contained most of the spices by toasting whole spices, then blitzing them in the coffee grinder (we just don't drink enough coffee to keep this as a coffee grinder, whereas we *do* grind enough spices to have a spice grinder). I couldn't really figure out whether this was a "right" recipe for Garam Masala, though, because the only two recipes I could find (didn't want to buy a premixed thing at the store) had wildly different contents, and neither one was from a really reputable source (americastestkitchen.com or foodtv.com would be the ones I'd trust).

Anyhow, it stewed for a bit, and served it with some rice. Ended up ok, but really like a watered down, less-intense version of what it should have been. We had some Aloo Gobi from a local Indian restaurant/Irish Pub that delivers a week or so ago, and that tasted great, but was swimming in oil. There has to be some sort of marginally less deadly compromise with a similar intensity of flavor. Gotta work on that.