Honey chilli potato (Vegan)
Hello people. Yet another friday night. Yet another Adyant sleeping with his grand parents night. Yet another me and D lazing on our beds with our tablets (respectively) mindlessly watching something online. The only thing different is it’s the eve of mine and D’s 10th year wedding anniversary and my in-law’s 40th!
We are doing a major house hunting tomorrow. Couldn’t book all the viewings today (since it is a friday). So we decided to celebrate our anniv today. What marks a celebration for me now makes me go ROFL. All I wanted was for us to go have breakfast as a family in a normal South Indian restaurant. So our morning was made happy with pooris/ appams/ pongal and coffee; made in-laws’ favourite Dil Pasand/ Dil Khush; Adya wants kaju kathli as part of the celebrations.. so that will happen tomorrow; Adya and I went spent sometime as usual with Tash & Co; Late evening chai sesh with in-laws & Adya with fil as always talking so highly and fondly (people who know him will realise this from his talk) of mil and their relationship; Following that was some board games with Adyant, mil & D (one hell of a confused D for this part) and then a F.R.I.E.N.D.S quizzing session with D (the quiz game was my gift to D); Finale was me, D, mil and Adya sitting and watching a few episodes of F.R.I.E.N.D.S while having Maggi for dinner (Adya is already a huge F.R.I.E.N.D.S fan.. mixed feelings about this one but mostly happy :D). Weirdly a good day and just how I wanted to spend it. Clearly makes me realise how old I am (my mental age definitely seems to be 60) :D.
No clue what Adyant understands as ‘marriage day’. He knows it’s all our ‘marriage day’ and was asking when his ‘marriage day’ is. When my mil told him that he’s not married yet, he claimed he does have a ‘marriage day’ with his bestie Sulaiman :D. Found it very cute when he said that.
Anywho, last weekend I made these kick ass honey chilli potato (actually no honey.. used maple syrup in it’s place :)). Thanks to my new (Can I use this anymore??) air fryer oven, making french fries has become a child’s play. D actually said the dish is proper restaurant quality. D rarely gives such compliments. So obviously, it had to be blogged. And oh, the main person who had to approve the dish had double approved it even before D had a taste. In case you think that’s Adyant, then you are mistaken. I am just talking about my own self :D. If you love indo chinese, please please try this out. Such a bomb of a recipe it is and so so easy weirdly.
- 2 medium potatoes
- 1 tsp corn flour/ starch
- 1/2 tsp olive oil
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp white sesame seeds
- 2 nos garlic medium size
- 2 nos green chillies
- 1 inch ginger
- 1 small onion
- 1/2 medium capsicum
- 2 tsp gingelly/ sesame oil
- 2 tbsp tomato sauce
- 1 tbsp siracha sauce
- 1 tbsp low sodium dark soya sauce
- 1/2 tsp white vinegar
- 1 tsp corn flour/ starch
- 3/4 tbsp maple syrup
- 3 tbsp spring onions
-
Wash and peel the potatoes.
-
Cut the potatoes into matchsticks, either with a knife or with a french fry cutter. The potato pieces should all be similar in size.
-
As you go chopping the potatoes, dunk them in a bowl of room temperature water (will prevent oxidizing as well as will help remove excess starch).
-
Drain the water and go about rinsing the potatoes twice or thrice in fresh water (helps remove excess starch).
-
Drain the water using a colander and just allow excess water to drip off the colander for 1 minute.
-
Transfer the potato sticks onto a dry kitchen towel/ tissue. Pat them dry.
-
Ensure the potato sticks are nice and dry – if required use additional kitchen towels/ tissues.
-
Place the potato sticks in a broad vessel. Add 1/2t olive oil, 1/2t salt, 1t corn flour/ starch.
-
Massage/ rub the oil & seasoning onto the potato sticks such that you coat all of them evenly.
-
Line them on the air fry tray one next to the other (do not bunch them up one on top of the other).
-
Set the timer in the Air fry oven for 25 minutes and pre heat to 200c (mine preheats in 3 mins and sends out a beep).
-
Air fry for 15 minutes.
-
Take the tray out after 15 mins, give it a nice shake and spread out the fries so that they are not clumped up together.
-
Air fry again for 10 minutes (keep an eye out the last few minutes to ensure you do not burn them. I literally took mine out at 24 since they had browned and crisped up well).
-
Once you pop the fries in the oven, get going on the veggie prep. Remove the skin of your garlic, ginger & onion. Wash the garlic, ginger, onion, green chillies and capsicum.
-
Chop the garlic into thin slivers. Slit the green chillies into 2 halves. Grate the ginger. Cube the onion and capsicum. Finely chop a few spring onion stalks.
-
Take a kadai/ skillet/ pan (the same one in which your gravy will be done). Dry roast 1/2t white sesame seeds till it starts to brown. Take it off the heat and set it aside on a plate.
-
In the same pan, heat 2t gingelly oil. Once hot, throw in the garlic and green chillies.
-
As soon as the garlic starts to change colour, throw in the grated ginger.
-
After 30seconds (or when the raw smell starts to wean off), throw in the cubed onion.
-
Saute till the onions start to soften/ change colour.
-
Throw in the capsicum and saute for 1 min or so. We want the capsicum to stay crunchy so don't let it cook through fully.
-
Inserting a line here to go check on your fries while all this is going on to ensure you give your fries a good shake/ mix up when it's 15 mins into the air fryer oven.
-
In a small bowl, mix 2T tomato sauce , 1T siracha sauce, 1T low sodium dark soya sauce , 1/2t white vinegar, 1/4t salt.
-
Add the seasoning onto the veggies and mix everything well. Check and adjust salt/ seasoning
-
Mix 1t corn flour/ starch in 2-3t of water to form a slurry.
-
Add that onto the veggies and mix. Add a 1/4c water if you don't want the end product to be a bit sticky.
-
Finally add 3T chopped spring onions, 3/4T maple syrup (for that sweetness) and mix everything.
-
While all this gets done, the french fries should also be ready. Just dunk it straight from the oven into the kadai.
-
Mix everything well. Turn off the heat.
-
Garnish with 1/2t dry roasted sesame seeds.
-
Serve it hot just like that as a snack or just pair it with anything you like.
- If you don’t have an air fry oven, you can totally just use a regular oven. My regular gas oven has way too much preheat time. So I never ended up doing these kind of dishes in that. I literally use that only for baking.
- If you have an air fryer and not an air fryer oven, this recipe would still work as is.
- Last but not the least, you could also pan fry these (will turn out soggy and not crispy). My mil used to make these for Adyant’s lunch box. You would ofcourse need more oil.
- You could totally use sweet potatoes instead of regular potatoes for this recipe.
- You can also deep fry the french fries but I am always lazy (only second reason is health :D) to keep a vessel of oil to deep fry anything.
- If you don’t have siracha sauce, use chilli sauce. You can obviously play around with the seasoning quantity to your taste buds. This mix totally works for me and I really loved the end product. D felt it was a total restaurant quality types dish.
- I love using seasme/ gingelly oil for any indo chinese dishes.
- Don’t be a miser on using a big piece of ginger. Adds so much to the taste and flavour of the dish.
- I know I call this Honey chilli potato and do not use honey :D. You could use honey in place of maple syrup or even good old sugar.
