Gourmet Files
Go green
VASUNDHARA CHAUHAN
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A couple of ways to prepare greens as they should be, without spicing or boiling the textures and tastes away.
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Photos: Vasundhara Chauhan
Crisp and tender: Bok Choy and Haak (below).
Is there an age bar on enjoying greens? Any green vegetables, but leafy greens in particular? I know I was forced to eat them and now I actually like them. In between, there was a stage of just about tolerating them but now, if forced to choose just
one food category, I think I’d probably plump for the leafy green stuff. A large part of it is probably to do with all the Eat Green propaganda we’re subjected to and though we skim over it and think Yes, right, it actually gets stored somewhere subliminally. Years — may be decades — of continuing dictatorship (mine) at the table has now given me my reward: after a day or two of eating out, even the kids, when asked what they want, say, “Oh a large salad, please”. What virtuous monsters! Obviously the repeated negotiation, Okay more meat if you also have more of the spinach, has worked.
Tedious preparation
But why do we destroy all the nutritional benefits of these goldmines of goodness in our cooking? In the north, particularly Punjab, the only leafy greens eaten traditionally are spinach, as in palak paneer and mustard greens, as in sarson ka saag. Both of which should actually be rechristened to Let’s Find a Tedious, Complicated, Time-consuming Way to Kill Greens. I make them religiously. In fact, as soon as sarson season is upon us, I wait for the gandals — stalks — to thicken because those are sweet and succulent, time the purchase for a day when we’re all eating out, and ready, steady, go! Because it takes half a day to make the blessed saag. You really want to know? Okay.
To coin a cliché, Sarson Da Saga:
First, you pick the gandals. Which no young cook understands — this capability is definitely a function of age. So you take the larger leaves off each stalk, peeling the outer skin on the stalk as you go. As you reach the bottom, you snap about half an inch of the stalk off. Only the peeled stalk and one or two of the tenderest leaves are retained. The rest is discarded. Of course, if you’re a believer in fresh milk and have a cow/ buffalo in your balcony, she’s in luck. Then you chop up the sarson, add some spinach and bathua (no translation), maybe some methi leaves, ginger, garlic and onions, a sweet veggie like a carrot or turnip, a handful of green chillies, and… you think that’s it? You boil them all with some water for about half an hour. Then you grind the whole thing into a coarse paste. Meanwhile your house is smelling like a methane plant leak. Then you add a bit of gur and a handful of makki ka atta, and simmer the saag for another half hour. Then you spend an hour cleaning the drops that have bubbled and spattered all over the hob and the kitchen. It’s usually a large quantity — or it should be, given the quantity of time and fuel spent — so you freeze it in portions. And then, just before you eat it, comes the good part: you temper it with ghee and chillies, add a knob of sweet white butter, and fall to.
This saag is good, but it’s also an acquired taste. And maybe it’s good because it’d better be, after all that work. But two questions: isn’t there an easier way of getting one’s vitamins? And are there any vitamins left anyway?
A better way
So, How not to kill your greens? Now that we’ve all matured and gone beyond chilli chicken to order Chinese greens when we go out for an oriental meal, why don’t we take a leaf out of the Eastern cookbook? Because it’s my impression that, even in Eastern India, they know how to keep their greens alive. Barely cooked, full of colour, crisp and tender. You can even see what nature intended the leaf to look like — it hasn’t been spiced, mashed and boiled for a month. Most green leaves, like spinach and bok choy, can be eaten raw. So they need a minimum of cooking on high heat, which is probably what keeps the colour and goodness. This is a basic recipe that can be used for most green vegetables: leaves, snow peas, bell peppers, spring onion leaves. Haak, the Kashmiri leaf, is tougher and takes more time.
The author is a food writer based in Delhi. She is with the ASER Centre.
Bok Choy with Mushrooms
Serves 4
10 dried mushrooms (or 200g fresh button mushrooms), 6 heads bok choy, 2 tsp vegetable oil, 12 cloves garlic chopped, Soya sauce.
Soak dried mushrooms in warm water for 30 minutes (or wash, dry and slice fresh mushrooms.) Separate and wash bok choy leaves. Slice diagonally into thirds, including stems. Heat oil and sauté garlic till golden. Squeeze water out of dried mushrooms and add to pan. Stir for a few seconds and add bok choy . Stir to coat with oil and add soya sauce to taste. Serve at once with steamed rice.
Haak (Greens)
Serves 6
1 kg large green leaves of haak (or spinach or mustard leaves), 3-4 tbsp mustard oil, 1 pinch asafoetida, dissolved in 1tsp water, 2-3 cups water, Salt, 4 red chillies, deseeded and broken into two, A quarter tsp bicarbonate of soda.
Wash the leaves and stems thoroughly and drain. Heat the oil in a saucepan. Cover with a lid (this is important), leaving a little opening away from you. Pour in the asafoetida and water through the opening. The oil will sputter and hot steam rise furiously, but the lid will take care of it. When the water boils, remove the lid and put in the salt and chillies. Add the haak leaves and the bicarbonate of soda, stirring and turning the leaves frequently. Cook, uncovered, till tender. Retain some water for a thin gravy to be eaten with rice.
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