Battata Harra (Hot Spicy Potatoes)

Ramadan has begun and I would like to try a simple dish that is commonly prepared in many kitchen at the Middle East to break our fast after sunset. We had some new potatoes harvested last week and it is perfect for Battata Harra (hot spicy potatoes) that I found in Ghillie Basan's The Middle Eastern Kitchen recipe book. A very quick and simple dish to prepare when you don't have much energy left in the late afternoon while getting used to fasting in this early month of Ramadan. We had to harvested some green tomatoes since we cleared the patch. Not much peas to harvest this week but snow peas are not too bad.

Battata Harra (Hot Spicy Potatoes)

Ingredients (serves 4):
4 Tablespoons olive oil
450g new potatoes, peeled and diced
3 cloves garlic, crushed
2-3hot chillies, chopped ( this will be up to you how spicy you want this dish, for me that is not enough)
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
salt
Juice of half lemon
A small bunch fresh coriander chopped

Heat the olive oil in a heavybased frying pan and add the potatoes.
Fry until browned and crispy, then stir in garlic, chillies and cumin seeds.

Fry for a minute or two longer, then season with salt, refresh with lemon juice, and sprinkle the coriander over the top. Enjoy.Selamat Berbuka Puasa.

 I think this will be much healthier than masak berlada (food fried coated with chilli paste) which is one of the favourite food in my family home. Hopefully my mama can persuade papa to try this dish. My papa enjoy hot and spicy food too much, at the point he can't live without it. He sulks each time when mama cook chicken with soy sauce which is not spicy for my boys...hehehe...

I am late for Daphne's Harvest Monday.

Surprisingly yellow cherry tomatoes, capsicum and chillies managed to keep on producing non-stop through winter this year, although we have already entered end winter. Some tatsoi were about to bolt, so I harvested them. We foresee that rainbow chards and purple giant mustards are regulars in our kitchen this month. Cut some sunflowers to cheer up the kitchen as well. Some beetroot were also harvested last week.

Our Italian sprouting broccoli plants are starting to produce many side shoots which I hope I can keep up harvesting them before it flowers this month. Occasionally lettuce are harvested for Ilhan sandwiches pack into his lunch box to kindergarten. We also have to keep on eye on the Pak Choi and harvest them before it flowers. We had fun pulling some parsnip tops and see how long it has grown last week.

We harvested most of our kailan (chinese broccoli) because it is producing flowers. Isn't it nice to harvest carrots that gives you many fingers which each one is much much much bigger than baby carrots. A bonus when one carrot plants give many fingers bigger the size of baby carrot. The feeling is like we harvested 7 different carrot plants when you are actually pulling out one plant. Afghanistan carrot is one of the best tasting carrot in soup/korma because it tasted so creamy (lemak) cook this way! The taste is so different than the normal orange carrot.Wish me luck with collecting Afghanistan carrot this year.