Sweet Potato Stew

Ingredients:

Sweet Potato 2 Medium
Onion 1
Green Chiles 3
Jaggery 2 (3 inch blocks)
Tamarind 2 – 3 inch sized ball
Fenugreek Seeds a small pinch
Red Chile Powder 1/2 tsp
Turmeric Powder a pinch
Rice Flour 1 Tbsp
Salt to taste
Cilantro few Sprigs

Talimpu:

Mustard Seeds 1/4 tsp
Cumin Seeds 1/4 tsp
Urad Dal 1/4 tsp
Broken Dried Red Chiles 3 – 4
Asafoetida a Big Pinch
Curry Leaves 5
Oil 2 tsps

Method of preparation:

Wash and finely chop the cilantro leaves.
Wash thoroughly, peel and chop sweet potato into large chunks or half inch thick disks.
Soak tamarind in quarter cup or more of warm water for sometime and extract all the thick juice.
Peel and chop onion into big chunks or thick slices.
Remove stems, wash and slice the green chiles.
In a small bowl, mix rice flour with couple of tablespoons of water to make thick smooth paste.

Heat a sauce pot on high flame, add sweet potato chunks, onion, tamarind extract, jaggery, sliced green chiles, fenugreek seeds, a cup water and salt.
Bring the mixture to a heavy boil and reduce the flame to medium.
Let the jaggery dissolve and let sweet potato pieces cook thoroughly while still holding their shape (around 20 min).
Slowly stir in the prepared rice flour paste into the sweet potato stew to make it little thick.
Add more rice flour paste if required but make sure the stew is not too thin or not too thick.
Let the stew bubble for a minute or two before proceeding with next step.

Heat oil in a pan on medium flame , add all talimpu ingredients in order.
When mustard seeds almost stop spluttering, add this to the prepared sweet potato stew.
Stir in cilantro and serve sweet potato stew with plain steamed rice and dollop of ghee.