I am so excited to share today’s recipe! This is one of the most famous and renowned Bangladeshi vegan dish, which is called Alur Daal or Potato Soup. This Alur Daal is from the northern part of Bangladesh, where it gets pretty cold in winter and thus produces a great quality of potatoes in that region! Please don’t be confused with the word Daal because there are no lentils in this recipe. The word Daal is used because the consistency of this dish looks like Daal, hence the name. Well, you must have tasted many version of potato soup but this is a typical Bangladeshi recipe, with lots of flavors and spices and perfectly goes in any cold days, especially now it’s October and seasons for soup has started!

As always, we need typical Bangladeshi ingredients but I hope you have these in your kitchen too, if you are Bangladeshi or Bangladeshi food lovers! We need potato ofcourse but recipe says that new potatoes are the best for this recipe. Well I live in a country which is known for its potato but still they taste different, but I will still cook with whatever I have! Besides potato, we need tomato, spices like turmeric, coriander, cumin, chili, gorom moshla powders and ginger garlic paste, plus some whole spices like bay leaves, cinnamon sticks, cloves and cardamom. Onion and green chili are also a must!

We start by boiling potatoes. I have added a table spoon of salt here so it does not taste too bland. We all know how to boil potatoes and there is no magic tips here, but what I always do is cut potatoes in half or quarters so they are quickly boiled. It will save a whole lot of time plus we can avoid the uncooked part in the middle of a big potato!

So potatoes are boiled and I peeled of the skins and put them in a big bowl. Next step would be to mash them in a way so there are still some bits left. We don’t need a perfectly smooth mash here for this recipe.

After I half-mashed the potatoes, I added a liter of room temperature water and made a thin soup like consistency. You need to make it thin because when you would cook the soup, it would be reduced in volume.

Now its time to start the main cooking process. In a deep pot, I heated white vegetable oil (you can use mustard oil for extra flavor) and when warm, I added bay leaf, cardamom, cloves and cinnamon. I let them fry for 30 seconds or less to release the flavor in the oil.

When cardamon and other spices started popping, I added roughly chopped onion and fried them until brown. I added a teaspoon of salt to fasten the process. Then I added ginger garlic paste and fried for a minutes until the raw smell goes away. Always remember to keep the temperature in medium to medium low, otherwise you will end up with burnt spices.

Then I added all the dry spices and cooked for about a minute.

Now, its time to do the “Koshano” means cooking the spices, so the raw smell goes away. I have explained the process in my previous recipes but for you I will explain it again. After cooking the dry spices for a minute with onion and ginger garlic paste, I added about 100ml water to the pot and let the spices simmer. Adding water helps in cooking the spices and also helps in releasing the flavors. After simmer about 4-5minutes, you will see the oil is getting separated and color of spices are getting darker. It means that spices are cooked thoroughly!

Then I added chopped tomatoes to the cooked spices. I fried them for a minute, then added water and covered the pot with lid. We need to cook the tomatoes in the same procedure as the spices, so they are cooked and release the nice tomato flavor in the dish! You will the spices are cooked when oils are separated and floating above!

So, all our spices are cooked and now we are going to add the thin potato mush to the spices! The idea is to cook them in the spics first, so I mixed and let the mush and potato cook for 3-4 minutes in low heat, preferably under lid.

The potato mush was about a liter already, so I will add 500ml of water to the pot and some green chili too. It’s time to simmer the soup for about half an hour so all the flavors are released and get mixed with potatoes. Befre you cover, please check and adjust the salt to your taste! Always keep the temperature low when you simmer. Also don’t forget to check in every 8-10 minutes and stir.

After half an hour of simmering, the consistency of potato soup looks more or less thick. If you are satisfied with the consistency, you can stop cooking at this point and turn the heat off. To me, I wanted more thick consistency, so I simmered for 10 more minutes!

After total of 40 minutes of simmering, the consistency of potato soup comes into my desire. So I turned off the heat and sprinkle some gorom moshla and fried onion on the top. You can garnish later when you serve the soup in a serving dish too.

So here is all time favorite, super delicious, Bangladeshi style Potato Soup aka Alur Daal. This is a great dish since it goes with literally anything, bread, rice, tortilla, toast, naan you name it! So enjoy your first soup in October – the traditional Bangladeshi Alur Daal!

Recipe: 4-6 Serving Prepping time: 20 minutes, Cooking time: 60 minutes

Ingredients: Vegetables 500g Potatoes 1-2 big red Tomatoes Spice and Condiments 40ml Vegetable Oil 1 big Onion 2tbs fine Salt 1tsp Turmeric powder 1tsp Coriander powder 1tbsp Cumin powder 1tbsp Chili powder 1tsp Ginger Paste (or Ginger powder) 1tsp Garlic Paste (or Garlic powder) 2-3 Green Chili 1 Bay leaf 2-3 whole Cardamom 2-3 Cloves 1 big cinnamon stick To garnish (optional) Fried onion 1/2 tsp Gorom Moshla Green Coriander leaves

Instruction 1. Wash and cut big potatoes in half or quarters and boil them to soft with a teaspoon of salt. 2. Peel boiled potatoes, take them in a big bowl and half mash them. Add a liter of water and make a thin mush. 2. Heat 4 table spoon of oil in a deep pan. Add bay leaf, cardamom, cinnamon and cloves. When they start popping, add roughly chopped onion. Fry onion until brown. Then add ginger garlic paste and cook for a minute to remove raw smell. 3. Add dry spices – turmeric, cumin, coriander and chili to the pot and let the spice cook for 1 minute. After a minute, add 50ml water and let the spices simmer in low heat until the oil starts separate and floats above. 4. Add chopped tomatoes to pan. Fry them first for a minute then add 20ml water and cook until tomatoes are soft and oils are separated. 5. Now add mush potato, salt, green chili and give them a very good stir until they are mixed well with cooked spice. Add 500ml water, cover and let them simmer in low heat for 30 minutes. Check every 8-10minutes. 6. After 30 minutes check if the potato soup is in desired consistency. If not, cover and let them cook for 10 more minutes. 7.When soup is in your desired consistency, garnish with coriander leaves, gorom moshla powder and fried onion as per desire and enjoy with rice or bread!