Recipe: Potatoes Stuffed with Spiced Cottage Cheese

Recipe Source: Baljekar, Mridula with Rafi Fernandez, Shehzad Jusain & Manisha Kanani.  Indian.  Anness Publishing, London, 2010 p. 310

This was our main dish on Christmas Eve.  It probably seems a little light, and it was a little light.  That was by design.  Our dinner guests are notoriously abstemious diners, and we were having a party later on that would be serving food.  (This was the party at which the smoked salmon tartlets were served.)  I wanted to offer something light enough that our guests would not feel too full to eat, but sufficient that people wouldn't feel that they hadn't been fed.  I think that I more or less accomplished my goal here.  I did make a few changes, of course.  I could use no seeds of any kind, so the onion and mustard seed mixture had to be omitted.  I was out of curry leaves, so they too were omitted.  I only had small potatoes so I used them, and I increased the recipe because the original was intended as a snack and this was the main dish.  

The results were pretty darned amazing if I do say so myself.  I don't actually like cottage cheese and I loved this.  I guess that if you add some actual flavor to the stuff it isn't that bad!  My guests enjoyed the dinner, and even my husband and daughter were satisfied.  

Potatoes Stuffed with Spiced Cottage Cheese (serves 6; $0.95/serving)

8 potatoes, washed

1 pound cottage cheese

1 tablespoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon ground coriander

1 teaspoon chile powder

Equipment:

• Aluminum foil
• Fork
• Mixing bowl

1. Preheat your oven to 350︒.
2. Prick the potatoes several times with the fork and make a slit in each with a knife.  Wrap each one in aluminum foil.
3. Bake for about an hour or until soft.
4. Meanwhile, mix the remaining ingredients in the mixing bowl.  Mix well.
5. When the potatoes are done, remove from the oven.  
6. Working carefully - an oven mitt or glove is useful here - unwrap a potato.  Cut it in half.  Score the potato's flesh on the cut side and pile it with 1/16 of the cottage cheese mixture.  
7. Repeat with the remaining potatoes and cheese.  
8. Serve.  

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