Let’s be clear about one thing, this dish is what you would call Fulkopi Alu Dalna (Cauliflower potato dalna) because it has both of the name ingredients. Seeing the name Cauliflower Dalna, I thought it would be a dish with just cauliflower (fulkopi) and none of you other wanna be cooks should have the misconception. But the dish we are going to make today has my favorite combination of vegetables and I love it.

Before we get into Fulkopi/Cauliflower Dalna, I would like to talk about “dalna” a little. I thought it was some kind of specific ingredient. “Dal” is a very popular Indian and Bengali cuisine which you might already be familiar with. It translates to lentils and there are a bunch of different lentils in our cuisine. You can see that the words “dal” and “dalna” are very similar. So I thought dalna is an ingredient closely related to dal. But no dalna is not an ingredient, it is a type of dish.

Naturally the next thing I did was try to figure out when a dish qualifies as dalna. So I googled but the first three results told me nothing. Then I asked Bard, the AI chatbot by Google. And what do you know, the AI by one of the biggest companies in the world made the same mistake as me. Bard thought that Dalna is a kind of dish that is typically made with lentil and other spices or vegetables. But I checked out a few recipes of different Dalnas, like Chanar Dalna and Aloo Fulkopir Dalna. None of these recipes actually included any lentils. So we cannot accept Bard’s definition of Dalna.

Since AI could not help me, I did some more manual searching. And somewhere I came across that Dalna is in fact a kind of curry that is cooked with a tempering of asafoetida and ginger. But I cross checked again and found that most of the Dalna recipes do not include any asafoetida. This seems the closest to an actual definition for dalna but it still is not completely accurate. So for now I am giving up on looking for a definition of Dalna. But if any of you know then please inform us, as you can tell I’m pretty curious about it.

Now on to the fulkopi part of Fulkopi Dalna. In other recipes I have stated multiple times that cauliflower is one of my favorite vegetables. And it isn’t just me, my whole generation shares the love for cauliflower. People used to look forward to winter to eat delicious Pithas. Now we wait and make memes about cauliflower. And if there is any other vegetable that can rival my generation’s love for cauliflower, it is potatoes. Potatoes are probably even more loved thanks to french fries, chips, and other glorious potato based snacks.

So you can probably understand that a dish with the two most popular vegetables is a fan favorite. Well calling it a fan favorite is exaggerating a little. Fulkopi Alu Bhaaji (Cauliflower potato fry) would probably take the title for fan favorite. Cauliflower Dalna is loved compared to other vegetable curries.

You can have Cauliflower Dalna with bhaat (boiled rice), ruti, parata. But my favorite is Cauliflower Dalna with luchi. In Bangladesh luchi and any vegetable curry (like Cauliflower Dalna ) is considered Hindu culinary specialties and being from a Hindu household I am quite very familiar with this dish. Even my friends deliberately ask to eat luchi and Cauliflower Dalna made by my mother. Now I call it a Hindu culinary specialty because temples usually serve some variation of vegetable curry with either luchi or khichuri. So it is more popular in Hindu households as well.

Now one quality of vegetable curries made in temples or for Hindu festivities is that they do not contain any onion or garlic. So today’s recipe won’t be served in any temple. But it’s still perfect for your kitchen. You can experiment on this recipe by not adding garlic. I don’t know how it would taste but you are free to try.

There are more ways to change up this recipe like by adding peas. You can add the peas right before you add the fried cauliflower. The peas will shift the flavor of the dish a little bit and you may prefer it that way.