Saag
My Mom talked about a delicious sarson ka saag that her neigbor cooked for her. I had a 50-50 organic leaf mix sitting with me which I wanted to cook today. I instantly requested to speak to her for the recipe. The recipe is for sarson ka saag but I tweaked it for my lea and it turned out to be very delicious. I'll be posting both the original and the tweak. Thankyou for your recipe, Reshma!
Ingredients for Sarson ka Saag:
Mustard Greens - Sarson - 1 bunch
Spinach - 1 bunch
Bathua - 1 bunch
Garlic - 1 small pod or 10-12 cloves
Onion - 1 big or 2 medium
Tomatoes - 3-5(depending on the size)
Green chillies - 2-3
Ginger - 2 inches.
Ingredients for my Leaf Mix Saag:
Leaf Mix - 1 box - 450 gms (16 oz)
Radish leaves - tender - 6-7, without stalks
Radish - 3 inch piece - chopped
Onion - 1 big
Tomatoes - 2 big
Green chillies - 2
Garlic - 10 cloves - chopped in a manual chopper
Ginger - 2 inches - grated
Mustard oil - 3 teaspoons
Ghee - a bit, for the final tadka
Red chillies
Salt, turmeric, red chilly powder
Method -
1. Cover and boil the leaves and radish in very little water. Let the mix cool.
2. Chop onions and tomatoes. You can puree 3/4th of tomatoes and leave 1/4th as roughly chopped. I used a manual chopper for garlic, onions and tomatoes.
3. Heat mustard oil. You can use any other oil but mustard oil for mustard greens sounds just right!
4. Add garlic. Then onions. After a while, add grated ginger and chopped green chillies. Add salt and let them turn golden brown. Add tomatoes. After 5 minutes, add turmeric and red chilly powder.
5. I used the chopper to roughly grind the boiled leaves. Even if you use a mixer, do not make a fine paste. Add the coarsely ground leaves to the mix. Let it simmer for at least 10 minutes. The longer you simmer, the creamier the texture. If it's mustard greens, simmer for 45 minutes. This will help the curry to get a creamy texture. You can add garam masala. (I did not)
6. Prepare the final baghaar. Heat a teaspoon of ghee. Add 2-3 dried red chillies and add this mix to the saag. You can season this in butter or oil too. You can use more ghee or butter. It will definitely add to the taste but I did away with the additional fat.
7. I simmered it exactly for 45 minutes. The taste was perfect! Edit: I've made this by simmering for just 10 minutes and it tasted good.
Tips:
1. There's no jeera or mustard seeds in the seasoning. Heeng can be added but I did not.
2. I could have added more radish leaves. I have a few kohlrabi. radish and beetroot leaves in my fridge. Wonder if I can try this recipe with that blend:)
3. Do not add methi leaves to the mix. It will give a bitter taste.
4. Try to boil the leaves in minimal water.
5. I was curious about what all was in my leaf mix. Here it is! Very interesting :)
