Potato

Potato is used extensively in Indian cooking, in soups, dry shaaks, wet shaaks, to stuff flatbreads like paratha, and in fried snacks like bhel puri. Potatoes are a New World vegetable that found their way to India by way of the Portuguese in the early 17th century. This explains why many people in India call it "batata," the portugese word for potato. The Hindi word for potato is "aloo," and you can find many "aloo" dishes on restaurant menus such as aloo korma, aloo tikki, and aloo pakhora.