Aloo Palak
Ever since we came back from our adventurous trip to north Wales (more of it in coming posts, hopefully!), we have hardly been entering our kitchen except for heating the food in microwave. Simple Dal and Rasams is all we managed to cook when it became too agonising to even lift a spoon after all those adventurous sports. Well, all that climbing, biking, and walking seemed like a good way of relaxing at that time, but at present I can’t help but think that we may have overdone it when I try to walk without limping with back and leg pain!
Tired of eating same dal and rasams with rice for last few days, we set out into making something of a treat to ourselves to cheer our taste buds. With few sad looking potatoes in a pantry and a bag of wilted baby spinach on the verge of committing suicide if it was not used in a day or two, I decided to cook much loved Punjabi dish called Aloo Palak. Aloo Palak, delicious gravy of spinach with tender potatoes doesn’t need any introduction. For me Aloo Palak is a dish which serves as a benchmark for many good cooks/chefs at home and restaurants. Like many other recipes in India, Aloo Palak can also be cooked in many ways using as little as 5 ingredients to as many as dozens of ingredients. Sometime you will be served Aloo Palak in a gravy form or simple stir fried form. But whatever way it’s been cooked or served, it remains to be one of the most loved Indian foods among many foodies.
I have been cooking this dish for around 3 years and at last I can say that we have found the recipe which we love the most. The base gravy is little thick due to addition of cashews which not only thickens the gravy but gives it little nutty and wonderful taste. With cashews, I add wee bit of dried fenugreek leaves which gives it very pleasant bitter taste along with extraordinary aroma and flavour it imparts. Both these ingredients are optional, and I don’t think they are used in a traditional recipe of Aloo Palak. But at the same time, these two ingredients add that oomph factor to my recipe of Aloo Palak. So try this recipe when you want to cook little different Aloo Palak and enjoy the whole goodness of greens this winter.
Baby Spinach and Potatoes for Aloo Palak
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Aloo Palak (Potatoes in delicious Spinach Gravy)
Prep Time: 10 mins
Cooking Time: 20-30 mins
Serves: 4-5
Ingredients:
5-6 packed cups of Spinach, washed, drained and roughly chopped
3 medium Potatoes, scrubbed, peeled, chopped and cooked with salt
1 medium onion, finely chopped
2-3 Tomatoes, finely chopped
1 tbsp Mint Leaves, roughly chopped (Optional)
1 tsp Ginger Garlic Paste
5-7 Cashew Nuts
3-5 Green Chillies (Adjust acc to taste)
1 inch Cinnamon Stick
2 Green Cardamoms
2 Cloves
1 tsp Sugar
½ tsp Garam Masala
½ tsp Aamchur/Dry Mango Powder or 1 tbsp Lime Juice
½ tbsp Kauri Methi/Dried Fenugreek Leaves (Optional)
1+½ tsp Jeera/Cumin Seeds
1+½ tbsp Oil/Ghee
Salt to taste
Aloo Palak
Method:
Heat about ½ tbsp of oil in a pan and add cinnamon, green cardamom and cloves. Sauté it for few seconds and add ½ tsp of cumin seeds. When cumin seeds start to sizzle and turn golden red, add cashews and green chillies. Sauté it on medium flame till cashews turn light golden brown in colour.
Mix in roughly chopped spinach, sugar and cover the lid. Cook this spinach cover for few minutes on a medium heat till it is wilted. If needed sprinkle little water in between to avoid them sticking to the pan. Cool the mixture and grind it to smooth paste with mint leaves adding as little water as possible. Keep aside this mixture till required.
Heat ½ tbsp of oil in the same pan and remaining cumin seeds. When it starts to sizzle, add finely chopped onion and sauté it for a minute. Now add ginger-garlic paste and sauté it till the raw smell disappears, about a minute. Mix in chopped tomatoes and sauté till it becomes pulpy.
Add kitchen king masala, garam masala and kasuri methi and keep stirring till nice aroma of masala fills the kitchen, about a minute. Mix in ground spinach paste and add about 1- 1½ cups of water and salt to taste. Let it cook on a low to medium flame for about ten minutes.
Add cooked potato pieces and amchur powder to spinach gravy and mix well. Cook for another 5-10 minutes so that potato absorbs all the flavours. Serve this Aloo Palak with any Indian bread of your choice and enjoy.
Just when I was about to give up on cooking something new, I remembered tasting a curry made using Channa Dal and Bottle gourd at one of my friend’s home some decades ago. Although I had no idea as how it was made I went along with the idea of combining nutty split chickpeas with little sweet and watery bottle gourd. With in few minutes I had this recipe in my mind and I could almost taste the final dish. I soaked quarter a cup of channa dal in water to soften while I went on chopping the other vegetables. And by the time Krish finished roasting frozen chapattis; this delicious Lauki-Channa Dal Masala was ready to seduce our taste buds. It was light, mild, delicious, quick, simple and different; everything I wanted it to be. This is my entry for Lore’s Original Recipe event and also my second entry for this month’s My Legume Love Affair hosted by Sra and initiated by Susan.
