“Kooka/ Chinese Potato/ Koorka” … Every amchi is familiar with this winter seasonal root veggie that tastes scrumptious be it served as simple upkari (bhaji/ stirfry) or added to curries … though the toughest part lies in cleaning, the taste it imparts to dishes compensates for the tedious work … sharing picture of kooka/ chinese potato for all those who queried about it … here it is …
** Kooka/Chinese Potato/ Koorka is a tubular seasonal veggie available only for about 3 months during the winter. Unlike the regular potatoes, these are much more denser and the outer skin is very muddy making it a huge task for cleaning. It is almost similar to colocasia (arbi/ alvamande) in looks however not of the same composition within. It does have several nutritional benefits and is definitely a healthy food and one should try to include and consume them whenever in season.
** Cleaning kooka/ chinese potato is the biggest task. I have changed my method of cleaning over the years, however your can prepare it anyway that is suitable to you, I have included a few below. Having said this, cleaning also depends upon the quality of the kooka available in your vicinity. In Mumbai, sometimes we get good ones, that peel off easily while sometimes we don't. So I will add in a few methods of peeling of the skin and you may follow as per the variety you get using trial and error method.
** Sadly, the season does come to an end towards the end of February. Luckily, it does have a good shelf life of say about 3 weeks, so I buy them in bulk (about 2-3 kgs) and continue to relish upto end of March. Some remain good, while some turn limp or spoil and some at times tend to sprout too, in fact decades back I tried to even plant them, but was unsuccessful. Well, this crazy tendency of storing it by stretching the time frame to maximum will make each one of you reading this the fondness towards this veggie.
** Method 1 : One way of peeling the outer skin is, You can either just use the potato peeler and peel the kookas using it.
** The Traditional Method : The other traditional way is to put kooka in a gunny bag (Ghoni) and tightly packing it and then banging/ hitting it on to a stone firmly while rotating the bag all round as you go through the method. This loosen the skin and most of it comes off. Just scrub it with both hands retaining it within the gunny bag to loosen it more. This method is not used much now as it is difficult to access gunny bag. Even rice have been started to come in plastic type bags. If you have one, you can sure try this out. My mother used to make it this way and during childhood we used to loved doing it for her. We really did enjoying banging around the gunny bag to loosen the outer skin of kooka.
** My Method : I soak the required amount of kooka in plenty of water for about 5-10 mins, changing them a few times if they are too muddy. This loosens the dry mud that is sticking to the kooka. Then I try loosening off the mud right there in the water by rubbing them between fingers. Some kooka's are well behaved and peel off easily, while some are stubborn and just don't listen making it difficult. So use the potato peeler and zap it comes out faster than when you run it on the drier one mentioned first.
** Another method which I did follow with very tiny one's is soak them in water and wash out as much dirt and mud as possible, then pressure cook it to one whistle, allow to cool and the peels come of easily just like that of arvi (alvamande/ colocasia). This was suggested to me by a friend, however I do not follow it much.
** Important step of soaking in water once its peeled : Whichever method you follow, one thing to remember its ... It is very important to drop the skin peeled kooka/ chinese potato into water to prevent it getting discolored. So keep a bowl with plenty of water ready and drop the peeled kookas immediately into them. Once done, wash them in plenty of water, rinsing many times in fresh water and remember to keep it soaked in water till the preparation/ cooking time.
** Now the kooka/ chinese potato is all cleaned and done and is ready to be cooked into desired dishes of your choice.
** I have included whatever method is followed by me and generally by most GSB's. However, there may be more efficient ways of preparing them, in which case I would highly appreciate it if you could drop a comment on it here.
** There are plenty of “Kooka/ Chinese Potato” recipes in the Blog to which I am sharing a common link below, you may browse through in leisure …
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