Shak (curry) innovation - paneer, potatoes, broccoli and red pepper

I am not usually very innovative in my shak combinations.  I tend towards the traditional combinations that I was taught.  For example, I usually cook paneer with either spinach or peas (not both together).  But, for some reason, the other day, I decided to branch out and go for a new combination:  paneer, potatoes, broccoli and red pepper. 



The different textures made it quite interesting but, if I made it again, I think I'd ditch the red pepper as I don't think it added much. Method of cooking as per the usual shak recipe but with the paneer and potatoes fried together for around 15-20 minutes before the rest of the vegetables added.  Used half a tin of chopped tomatoes right near the end (no earlier to avoid making the paneer soggy) because my lovely husband loves tomatoes but you could definitely skip them.

Paneer and potatoes frying

Paneer and potatoes frying

 

Garlic fried potatoes

Ta da!

My life is pretty good so I don't have many problems.  There are, however, two that I have been wrestling with for a little while:  my lovely husband doesn't much like potatoes but I do; and what the right side dish for Ottolenghi's stuffed onions is.


The answer to both of these questions seems to be garlic fried potatoes.  I've been messing around with these for a while and I think I now have it right.  What I do is: 

Frying potatoes

• take eight or nine new potatoes
• slice them up roughly into quarters or thirds depending on the size of them
• heat a couple of tablespoons of olive oil in a frying pan
• fry the potatoes for about 10 minutes - until they start to give out some juice
• then crush 4-5 cloves of garlic in

Almost at the garlic stage

• continue to fry until they go crispy and golden brown on the outside (this stage usually takes another 20 minutes)
• add salt and black pepper a couple of minutes before I take them off the heat

And then eat!  I suspect that frying them in butter might make them tastier but, for health reasons, I prefer not to.  A word of warning:  these are really quite garlicky!