The Cheesy, Comforting Potato Dish Getting Us Through January

I grew up in Pakistan, and a family-favorite dish was aloo kee bhujia, a dish of potatoes stir-fried with spices and tomatoes. My mom was always quick to turn to this minimal-effort dish as a choice for feeding our family of six, and we often enjoyed it as a side to hefty meat dishes like aloo gosht (a meat and potato curry) and daal gosht (lentils with goat). In India, aloo kee bhujia refers to a spiced mixture of gram flour and boiled potatoes that are riced and deep-fried until crisp. West of the border in Pakistan, however, aloo kee bhujia is a silky-smooth cooked potato dish that is meant to be eaten as a meal or as an accompaniment to a bigger spread. Today, the dish—which has a jammy tomato gravy, plenty of heat from Kashmiri chile powder, and earthiness from cumin—remains a staple in my own home.

Recently, I was inspired to incorporate some of aloo kee bhujia’s flavors into a gratin. Packed with cheese, tomatoes, and seasoned with cumin, cayenne, turmeric, chile powder, and smoked paprika, this spiced potato gratin has all the traditional components of aloo kee bhujia but with the signature creaminess of gratin. I start by sautéing onion and garlic with the spices, add the sliced potatoes and tomatoes, then let it all simmer until the spuds are tender. While that cooks, I prepare the mornay cheese sauce that serves as the base of the gratin. Tossed with the potatoes and baked, the gratin is a cheesy, comforting dish that’s homey enough for a weeknight meal but is also impressive enough for a dinner party. Here’s how to make it.

How to Make a Delicious Spiced Potato Gratin

Reach for good Gruyère. Like most gratins, the flavor of this dish will be determined by the quality of the dairy you use. I recommend using a good quality Gruyère, which has a pleasant nuttiness that goes well with the spices. It also melts easily, making it a great cheese to use in a gratin. 

Go hard on the spices. For a dish that truly evokes aloo kee bhujia, I use all the same spices I’d use to prepare the traditional Pakistani dish: cumin seeds, cayenne pepper, ground turmeric, Kashmiri chile powder, and smoked paprika. I add the spices as I sauté the onion and garlic, allowing the flavors to bloom and meld in the hot oil. As Serious Eats contributor Nik Sharma wrote in his recipe for tadka, heat can “transform some of the flavor molecules in spices into new, tastier ones,” resulting in “an amplified sensorial experience that would not otherwise be achieved in the absence of heat.”

Be gentle with the potatoes. Use a gentle hand when you incorporate the potatoes and fold in the cheese sauce. Since the potatoes are partially cooked at this point, handling them too aggressively may result in mashed potatoes—which, while delicious, is not gratin. 

Broil until crisp—but keep an eye on the gratin. One of the best parts of a gratin is the crisp golden brown topping. A brief stint under the broiler helps easily achieve this, but it’s essential that you keep an eye on the gratin, as broilers can vary in strength and your gratin can quickly go from wonderfully brown to burned.

It’s not the aloo kee bhujia of my childhood, but it’s a fun, delicious riff that reminds me of home and the food I grew up on—even when I’m so far away.

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