Indian Spiced Smashed Potatoes with Mustard Ginger Tempering. Bonda like Samosa is a spiced potato snack. These smashed potatoes are topped with Bonda style tempering of ginger, chile, turmeric and mustard seeds. Vegan Gluten-free Recipe.
There are many many ways potatoes are used in Indian cuisine especially for snack options. Samosa is one of the popular snack. Bondas, Vada pav, Cutlets, patties, stuffed potato balls, mashed potato and chutney sandwiches, dabeli, masala pav, many chaat options and on and on. Most use long processes and often are deep fried. These Baked Smashed potatoes need just about 20 minutes active time and no frying! All the flavors, less work and a great looking dish!
Bonda (mashed potato fritters) are somewhat like samosas. They are bites of mashed potatoes that have been spiced with a tempering /tadka of mustard, ginger, turmeric & chile. The potatoes are rolled into bite size balls which are dipped in chickpea flour batter and fried (generally gluten-free if the restaurants use only chickpea flour). You can find a recipe for Baked Aloo bonda in my Indian Kitchen book.
I use the Bonda tempering as a dressing on these smashed potatoes. Depending on the spices used, these would be Bonda Smashed potatoes or Samosa smashed potatoes or just Indian Smashed potatoes. Love potatoes? Love Samosas or other Indian spiced snacks? Then make these addictive Crispy Spiced Smashed Potatoes! Serve these with a dash of lemon juice or with Mint Chutney or Tamarind Chutney.
Small Potatoes are pressure cooked in an Instant Pot until well cooked, then smashed, brushed with oil and baked. The tempering with ginger, garlic, chile and mustard seeds makes a flavorful garnish. For a quick version slice and bake the potato slices as canapes and add the tempering on the slices.
The dressing is amazing and steals the show here. You can out it on any roasted or steamed vegetable!
More snacks from the blog
- Samosa Potato Pinwheels
- Baked potato rice crackers – gluten-free
- Baked Maida Papdi – Cumin seed Crackers
- Moong Dal Spinach Pakoda Fritters – GF
- Potato Quinoa Patties
- Onion fritters (pakora),Tandoori tikka, Gobi manchurian, Aloo bonda (baked mashed potato fritters), Handvo (GF Lentil zucchini cakes) in the book.
If you make these, do let me know how they turned out! Please comment and rate it.
Pressure Cook or Boil the potatoes. I used Instant Pot.
Cool Smash and bake. 
Make the tempering.
Top the smashed potatoes with the tempering and bake again for a few.
Serve garnished with lemon and cilantro and lemon.
Spiced Smashed Potatoes with Mustard Ginger Tempering
Ingredients
- 12 (12 to 14 ) small potatoes (12 to 14)
- Water
- salt & cayenne for baking
Ginger Chile Mustard Tempering:
- 1 tbsp oil
- 1.5 tsp mustard seeds
- 10 fresh or frozen curry leaves omit if you dont find them, chop the leaves for extra flavor.
- 1/4 cup (40 g) onion finely chopped
- 4 cloves of garlic minced
- 2 inch piece of ginger peeled and minced
- 1 hot green chile finely chopped
- 1/2 tsp turmeric (1/2 to 3/4)
- 1/4 tsp cayenne (1/4 to 1/2)
- 1/4 cup (62.5 ml) water
- 1/4 tsp (0.25 tsp) salt
Garnish:
- cilantro lemon juice, salt, and mint(optional)
Instructions
- Pressure cook the potatoes in enough water to cover them. Cook on manual in Instant Pot(hi pressure) for 4 to 5 minutes depending on the size of the potatoes. Let the pressure release naturally. Alternatively, add to a large saucepan with water enough to cover the potatoes. Bring to a boil over medium high heat, then lower the heat to medium and cook for 15 to 20 minutes or until the potatoes are tender to preference.
- Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F / 220ºc. Peel the potatoes partially if you wish. Place on parchment lined baking sheet. Smash down with a saucepan. Chop into bite size smashed pieces if the potatoes are too larger. Brush oil on the potatoes. Add a good dash of salt and cayenne on each.
- Bake at 425 degrees F / 220ºc for 16 to 18 minutes. Longer for crispier potatoes.
- Meanwhile make your tempering: Heat oil in a small skillet over medium heat. When hot, add mustard seeds and let them start to pop. Keep a lid handy to avoid the pops hitting you. Add curry leaves, reduce heat to low or low-medium.
- Add the chopped onion, ginger, garlic, chile. (I usually roughly chopped onion, whole garlic, ginger, chile all in the processor to finely chop to reduce time).
- Cook for 6 to 8 minutes, stirring occasionally, until golden.
- Add salt, turmeric, cayenne and mix in. Add 1/4 cup water and salt and mix in. Bring to almost a boil and Take off heat.
- Place some of the tempering on each of the smashed potato bite. Sprinkle salt. add cilantro, some chopped mint if using, and drizzle of lemon juice. Serve.
Notes
Nutrition
Great recipe! Could you suggest any alternatives to be able to make these without onion and garlic?
omit and use some asafetida and moree ginger
This recipe is very flavorful—so far we have really enjoyed all the recipes on this site (we’ve made four so far)! However, as a new Instant Pot user, I greatly underestimated the time it would take. I thought using the IP to cook the potatoes would save me some time; such was not the case. To allow the pressure to naturally release, it had to sit for 30 full minutes after the cook time was done. I suggest you start making this early, or use the stovetop method to cook your potatoes. Oh, and the dash of lemon juice at the end is the definitely what made this spicy dish perfect! <3
great! you can quick release after 10 mins. the potatoes should be cooked by then
I just copied this recipe, as I love potatoes. It looks yummy, and I want to tell you how much I appreciate the alternative suggestions you give for many parts of your recipes.
But I have a question:
The kind of ginger I buy is usually a largish piece of ginger root, as much as 5 inches long, and it is thin in some places and very fat in others. Whenever a recipe says to use “one or two inches” of the root, I am at a loss to understand how much chopped ginger is called for. Could you please tell me how many teaspoons or tablespoons would be filled by mincing the 2-inches of ginger root that you mention ?
I can hardly wait for tomorrow to come, so I can go buy some of the ingredients in your recipes and start cooking. My husband is very eager to eat them, too!
an inch knob will give you about 2 tsp minced , if you like more gingery, add a tsp more!
I loved this recipe. I used panch phoron in place of the mustard seed in the tempering which worked pretty well. I also noticed that the suggested garnishes you mention had some similar flavour profiles to your recipe for chimichurri that you also use with smashed potatoes: https://www.veganricha.com/2019/06/crispy-vegan-smashed-potatoes-with-chimichurri.html
I made the chimichurri as a second topping for the potatoes (with basil, cilantro and parsley) – it went very well with the tempering of this recipe! Thanks 🙂
Thats awesome!
Very tasty! Will definitely make again. My 2nd time using the instant pot, would love more instant pot recipes!
This is a wonderful recipe! My guests loved it. Thanks!
yay!
I just made these – delicious! I followed the recipe exactly, and would not change a thing 🙂 I followed your advice on using the food processor (I used a small manual food processor.) Thanks for another great recipe!
Awessome!
Your recipes look amazing … I love a lot of spice. Where does one find curry leaves? Are they dried, powdered, fresh?
i usually use fresh curry leaves from the Indian store. You can get fresh or dried on amazon too.
Richa, you are the queen of spices. Your blends are magical. I had this for lunch, and it was delightful. Next time, to simplify things, though, I’ll make patties with the potatoes and the tempering, which i will fry. A big thank you for this blog which has become my favorite! Wishing you great success with your exceptional culinary skills.
Although i not good cook but i can feel it, This will be on dinner table 🙂
These turned out smashingly good! 🙂
Have been making smashed potatoes for a number of years now and never thought to add a topping.
How brilliant, and such a great tasting one at that.
Next time will add another 5 min to the potatoes in the oven, but otherwise this is a keeper.
Thank you.
Awesome! yes the time would depend on the size of the potatoes, the oven etc.
I just received an instant pot as a gift and am trying to figure out how to use it. Thanks for this idea!
This looks awesome. I have been craving bondas lately but since I am on a diet, I have been avoiding the deep fried version. This looks like a nice compromise. I will make them tonight, thank you Richa.
Sounds so great–can this work with larger potatoes or sweet ones? Thanks! (how to cut, then?)
Cube them into 1 inch cubes once boiled. Smash each cube, then proceed to bake. Sweet potatoes cook faster, so just par boil or par bake, then smash and bake to crisp.