Cuckoo Aloo
For regular omnivores, the prospect of eating meat-free dishes might sound bland or unexciting, and a lot of sites might cheerfully suggest when cooking vegetables to “just season with a little salt and pepper, and let the fresh flavors shine through!” But what if you… don’t love the fresh flavors of vegetables? Or are cooking for a particularly picky eater? Welcome to the power of really great seasonings. A number of our blends are named after specific dishes or ingredients, but that doesn’t mean you should box them in to just one recipe- they can be repurposed again and again to add a complexity of flavors that make even simple dishes feel more exciting.
It really doesn’t get simpler than our recipe for a dish we’ve finally settled on calling “Cuckoo Aloo.” We start by roasting our sweet potatoes first with the Montreal Chicken Seasoning seasoning and Jeff sprinkled on a little at the end as well- roasting your sweet potatoes first means that they can develop their sweetness without slowing down the rest of the ingredients in the sauté pan. In our initial trial run for this recipe Chef Jeff went with a boiled yellow potato, and within the first minute of tossing it it with the rest of the ingredients they quickly crumbled and fell apart. While our taste testers gleefully gobbled up the mash, Jeff wasn’t satisfied with the texture and wanted to find a better potato and preparation. What was left was a dish which reminded us of classic Indian potato dishes like Aloo Chaat, plant-based and deliciously spiced. If you wanted to go spicier, you could use Nashville Hot Chicken Seasoning or our Blackened Seasoning. If you wanted to do something closer to another Indian dish called “Bombay Potatoes,” we HIGHLY recommend our Maharajah Style Curry Powder. All these blends happen to be salt-free, so you can season them to your liking or save the extra sodium for a bowl of popcorn later.
Once the sweet potatoes were spiced and roasted, they were tossed with the rest of vegetables that had been sautéed prior so they were almost fully cooked. Combining the cooked potatoes with the rest of the vegetables means that you can avoid over-crowding your pan and cook everything evenly.
- 2 - 3 pounds of sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed
- 1 cup diced tomatoes
- 1 cup onion, diced
- 1 ½ cups chickpeas
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- 3 Tablespoons olive oil, separated
- 1 cup baby spinach
- 1 Tablespoon Montreal Chicken Seasoning
- Pinch of Fine Sea Salt and Medium Grind Black Pepper
- Preheat oven to 425F. Place sweet potatoes on a baking sheet and toss with 1 Tablespoon of olive oil. Add Montreal Chicken Seasoning and toss again to coat. Place in oven and roast for 35 minutes.
- Heat skillet to medium-high and add olive oil. Add onions and cook for 4 minutes. Add garlic and cook for 3 more minutes.
- Add tomatoes and cook 3 minutes. Add chickpeas and stir. Add spinach and cook until it’s wilted. Stir in sweet potatoes and cook an additional minute. Serve!
