Bhatia Suran (Yam) Curry

About this recipe

Suran appears on Bhatia tables around Diwali, the elephant-foot yam that arrives with autumn, cooked in a tangy tomato-tamarind gravy that cuts through its earthiness. There's one rule, and it's not small: rub your hands with oil and a little tamarind before you peel the raw yam, or your fingers will itch for hours. Anyone who's made suran knows this lesson intimately. The gravy is sweet-tart, the way Bhatia food often is—tamarind soured, jaggery sweetened, balanced against tomatoes. Cook the suran until it's properly soft; an undercooked yam is chalky and wrong. When it's right, it's creamy and almost melts on the tongue. This is the kind of seasonal cooking that marks time in an Indian kitchen. You wait for suran season the way you wait for guavas or mangoes. When it arrives, you make this curry because it's what you've always made, the way your mother made it, the way her mother did. It's not a complicated dish, but it carries weight. Serve it with hot rice or puri, a wedge of lemon on the side. The leftover curry is good cold from the fridge, good reheated, even good the next day when the flavours have settled deeper into the yam. Store it in an airtight container for up to four days.