Angel-Hair Potatoes

First, a note on pronunciation. Sali here is pronounced with a short a. With a drawn-out vowel, “saali,” it means something completely different. The surface meaning of sala, “brother-in-law,” and sali, “sister-in-law,” are innocent enough, but in vernacular use they’re epithets, not always jocular.

I don’t know any other Indian cuisine that features straw potatoes quite the way we do. Ours are finer than fine, deep-fried but not allowed to color beyond b