Aloo Posto

Bengali home cooking from the colonial period: the British East India Company ran opium monopolies through Bengal in the 18th–19th centuries, and the poppy seed (posto) was the cheap, legal byproduct that local cooks absorbed into daily meals. Aloo posto became a hot-weather staple in West Bengal because the dish stays cooling, uses no garam spice, and matches the regional preference for mustard oil over ghee.

Bengali home cooking from the colonial period — the British East India Company's 18th–19th-century opium monopolies in Bengal made poppy seed the cheap legal byproduct local cooks absorbed. Mustard oil must be smoked first or it tastes of horseradish.

Diced potato in a pale, sandy paste of ground white poppy seed. No tomato, no onion, no garam masala — just mustard oil, slit green chili, sometimes a pinch of nigella. The poppy seed turns nutty and faintly sweet; mustard oil gives a sinus tickle that fades. Eaten with rice and dal. Should be dry, almost dry-fried; if it's soupy, too much water went in.

Posto must be ground wet to a smooth paste — soaked first in warm water, then stone-ground or blender-pulsed with a little water. Dry-grinding gives gritty paste that never coats the potato. The mustard oil also has to be smoked first (heated to its smoke point and cooled slightly) to kill the harsh raw pungency; raw mustard oil tastes of horseradish in a way that overpowers the poppy.