Aloo Gobi

This version mangles a renowned vegetarian dish so severely and heretically that it rightfully must be called something else. Here chicken is added with broccoli. Blasphemy! So it runs counter to the purpose it was devised in the first place, which was to jazz up plain vegetables. So:

Curry Chicken With Vegetables. 

This was prompted by the video (bottom) linked by Peter Hoh in the comments in which a young woman Gurinder Chada prepares aloo gobi with her mother and her aunt in the background watching and helpfully critiquing. Incidentally, in'nit odd one must look down to the Italian subtitles to discern something spoken in English, that the other woman is Gurinder's aunt? 

The video is hilarious. Gurinder decides her student version of aloo gobi (gobi, what a fantastic word for cauliflower) does not require the thin-skinned potatoes to be peeled. Her mother is not having it. The aunt agrees with Mum. Observe the mother transform immediately by voice modulation from demure gentle mum to demanding authoritarian (read this in an Indian accent for full effect)

Mum: "You should peel the potatoes."

Gurinder: "Why?"

Mum: "So the potatoes look nice."

Gurinder: "But it doesn't make any differen …"

Mum: "You must peel the potatoes so that they look nice."

Gurinder: "Eh, but the good stuff is in the peel anyw …"

Mum: "PEEL THE POTATOES." 

Aunt: " Yes peel the potatoes so that they look nice." 

Gurinder: shrugs

The tinned tomatoes must be grated. So it looks nice. Gurinder would rather just bash them. Not today, they MUST be grated. So it looks nice. MUST BE GRATED.

But then later it doesn't make any difference at all what order the ingredients are added, even the potatoes which take longer than the cauliflower, or when the chiles are popped in. And the aunt agrees at the end of the video it all depends on what the cook wants to do as far as which spices are included. Sometimes the chiles are hot and sometimes they are not. Today they are hot. So, very strong opinions on things of little importance and no opinion at all on other matters that can alter the dish significantly.  

The techniques and the spice ingredients in the video Peter linked vary widely with other videos on YouTube. The frustrating part of all these videos are the unfamiliar spices and the accent with which they are named. They are usually laid out mise en place and the cooks each kindly tick them off one by one. The thing is, in each case the assumption is made that the viewer is familiar with all the spices being pointed out as if they are all common to the English-speaking world which they are not. If the videos receive a lot of comments then you can be assured whatever question you have is asked there and answered. But if the video receives little to no comments then you are just plain out of luck. 

Through it all, in the end, you are left to your own resources and your own decisions regarding techniques so that you end up with a more or less dry or wet curry sauce that is cooked into the potatoes and cauliflower. 

The video by vahchef (bottom) uses fresh tomatoes and pounds them with the onions and chiles to start off the sauce. Gurinder uses tinned tomatoes and bashes them. Her mother grates them. What will you do? I say, do whatever suits you. Chop them, process them, whatever. 

All the videos begin by heating cumin seeds in oil. So I would definitely stick with that. 

The thing I appreciate about vahchef is that he begins by acknowledging that vegetables need a lot of help. Thus the spices. His list of spices is much more extensive than those used by Gurinder's family, whose mum also omits garlic because she avers it does not go with potatoes. (¿) 

red chile powder

coriander powder 

amchur (mango powder)

cumin seed

garam masala

ginger/garlic paste

kasuri methi (fenugreek leaves)

turmeric

cilantro leaves

hinge (asafetida)

I follow Gurinder Chada more closely than vahchef in that I use less spices because I don't have the spices that vahchef uses. But I follow vahchef more closely than Gurinder because I use fresh tomatoes instead of tinned, again, because that is what I have. 

I missed following both because I forgot to include red chile powder. I didn't realize until I was half way done eating the pile on my plate so I added it as condiment and it altered the rest significantly. Judging by the range of approaches, techniques and ingredients, I am imagining that is not such an inexcusable thing. 

Other cooks do other things too, make other comments on their videos they feel are important, like soaking the potatoes to rid excess starch, the sequence of adding ingredients, and spices they regard indispensable, but these two videos I think do show fairly well the range of variation within which one can safely operate. Naturally, I violated that range, but I can get away with all that because I am pleasing only myself and because I never have claimed anything close to culinary fidelity. 

Conclusion: This chicken and broccoli aloo gobi is delicious even with red chile powder added as condiment. I love it. I am imagining this could be served to applause. 

Recommendation: Bash your tomatoes if you want to and leave the potatoes un-peeled if that is your stylistic choice, and dismiss anyone's mum who presumes to deny the awesomeness of garlic with its near universal application, while sternly and confidently protesting in the background, infidelity! heresy! and blasphemy!

1) Gurinder Chada's aloo gobi on YouTube via Peter Hoh

2) Vachef's aloo gobi on YouTube