Curried Mustard Greens (Sarson Ka Saag)

Photo: sonia gupta

Ingredients

1 bunch Mustard Greens:

1 bunch Spinach Greens:

1/4 bunch Fenugreek Greens:

2 Onions:

4 Tomatoes:

2 Ginger:''

4 Garlic cloves:

2 cups Water:

2 teaspoons CornFlour: (or dry roasted gramflour)

2 teaspoons Desi Ghee: (add more to taste)

1 teaspoon Salt, Chilli, Turmeric: each

1 teaspoon Garam Masala:

200 Paneer Cheese: gms (optional)

2 Dry Red Chilli: for garnishing

Preparation

The preparations begins with a little tedious task of thoroughly washing all the greens. Trim the ends of leaves and roughly chopping the bunch of greens. The trick to make sumptuous saag is to crush the ginger and garlic in mortar and pestle, to extract there juices which later adds to the aroma of saag. In a pressure cooker, steam the chopped greens, crushed ginger garlic by adding water. Let the greens cool down and grind in a mixer to make a thick paste.

In a nonstick pan, heat oil and saute dry red chilly, onions and tomatoes. Add spices to taste. Take out the chilly for garnishing and puree onions/tomatoes.

Mix this tempering in the curry and gently add cornflour (makki atta) to thicken the curry/saag. In case, cornflour is not available, dry roasted gram flour can be added too. The big chunks of paneer cheese can be added to the curry to make saag paneer.

Garnish with dry red chilly. Generously add desighee to taste, as this is the key taste defining ingredient of punjabi cuisines. Enjoy the steaming hot mustard curry/saag with makki roti, gudh and chilli pickle....!