Greens were never my favourite vegetable and while I never avoided them, they weren’t ever sought out in my kitchen. Today, greens have a special place at home. We eat quite a bit of greens of all sorts, and mix and match them into dishes like this delicious vegetable stew cooked in dahi/yogurt that used both radish greens and spinach.
This recipe was created for The Right Side of Life, a Safal community on Facebook. If you’re interested in eating healthier and involving food in different aspects of wellness, this is a group for you. We’re planning lots of activities and content for this group that I’m sure you’ll love!
At this time, there are so many wonderfully radiant and fresh greens available in the market and we thought we’d have a sort of mega-greens evening, even if it did mean eating a fair bit more carbs and fried stuff than we usually do.
Naming this post was a problem, because this post isn’t about a single dish, it’s about three – rotis and saag, paanch saag paratha and paanch saag kachori, all based on one delicious blend of four different greens – bathua (lamb’s quarters), methi (fenugreek), sarson (mustard) and suva (shepuchi / dill greens).
Ingredients:
- Chaar Saag
- Bathua, 150 gm, washed and picked
- Sarson ka Saag, 150 gm, washed and picked
- Suva Saag, 100 gm, washed and picked
- Methi leaves,150 gm, washed and picked
- Sabat (whole) Masala
- Saunf (aniseed), 2 tsp
- Methi (fenugreek) seeds, 1 tsp
- Powders
- Heeng (asafoetida), 1/4 tsp
- Red chilli powder, 1 tsp
- Saunth (dried ginger) powder, 1 tsp
- Aamchur (dried mango) powder, 1 tsp
- Ginger-Garlic paste, 2 tbsp
- Green chillies, 2 pieces, finely chopped
- Mustard oil, 2 tbsp
- Salt, 1 tsp
Method:
- Grind all the sabat masalas and mix with all the powders, including the salt.
- Heat the mustard oil in a large pot till medium hot.
- Add the mixture from step 1, fry for a minute. Add the green chillies. Fry for another 30 seconds.
- Add all the leaves. Keep mixing and stirring till the water has all but dried out.
- The saag is now ready and can be eaten with rotis.
You can use this saag as a filling for parathas and kachoris too. See notes for more information.
Notes:
- You can chop the leaves if you want. We didn’t.
- Don’t heat the oil too much before putting in the mixture from step one, or the whole lot will immediately burn.
- The sabat masalas can be ground as coarsely or finely as you want. I did it midway.
- If you’re planning to eat with rotis, you can retain some more moisture within.
- If you’re planning to use as a stuffing, dry it out quite a bit more. Remember to cool it before using as a stuffing.
- For the dough for kachoris and parathas, we used the same as in Sweet potato and carrot halwa. The dough turned out quite nice for really crisp and flaky parathas.
- The saag goes really, really well with dahi/yogurt.
- Did I mention it goes great with dahi?
