Sarson Ka Saag
Puréed Mustard Greens
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Heat
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Serves
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Dietary Info
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Prep 10 mins
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Cook 20 mins
A classic Punjabi dish of pureed mustard leaves and spinach
Hari says
The most famous dish of the Punjabi region, saag is traditionally made with mustard and spinach leaves and served with bright yellow makaee di roti (roti made with corn flour).
As a child I remember cooking saag being a day long event, even before the cooking started finding the mustard leaves was hard enough. I have memories of my parents stopping the car on the motorway and leaping over a fence to pick some leaves from a field, but I won't go into detail. Cooking the saag was tough. Mum had a big thick stick called a 'medulla' that she used to bash the greens down to a puree, cook them and bash them again, then repeat.
Now we have pressure cookers and hand blenders this is so much easier to do. Mum's recipe has been cooked and modified over the past 35 years. It now takes less than an hour, tastes fresh and is packed full of flavour - by using a pressure cooker the greens hold onto more vitamins and minerals as well.
You can use frozen and tinned spinach to save time but as my mum says "Why use pre-made food when you can make it fresh yourself in the same time?" - who am I to argue....all I know is Popeye would be in his element!
- Ingredients
- Method
- 500g palak/spinach
- 500g saag mustard leaves if you can find them if not use curly kale or greens (washed and dried thoroughly)
- 4cm ginger, roughly chopped
- 5 cloves garlic, whole
- 1 chilli, roughly chopped
- 1 tsp salt
- 1-2 tbsp corn flour to thicken (if required)
- 4 tomatoes, finely chopped
- 65g butter
Method
- Wash and slice the spinach and place in the bottom of the pressure cooker.
- Wash and finely slice the greens and place on top of the spinach.
- Add the ginger, garlic, salt and chilli to the pan and secure the pan lid.
- Heat the pressure cooker and bring to temperature. When the cooker whistles twice (should take about 10 minutes) reduce the heat and leave to simmer for about 5 minutes.
- Remove from the heat and leave to cool - DO NOT REMOVE THE LID.
- Next release the pressure, open the lid and leave to cool for a few minutes.
- Using your hand blender blitz the saag. The aim is to have a thick bright green puree, if it's a little watery place the cooker back on the stove on a high heat and stir continuously to reduce and thicken. You can also thicken it up by sprinkling with a little corn flour, but I prefer not to.
- In a frying pan melt the butter and add the chopped tomatoes. Fry gently until the tomatoes have cooked down to a pulp and you have a thick tomato paste.
- Stir into the saag, check seasoning and serve.
Served with
Traditionally served with yellow roti (as we used to call it) or Makki di roti, which is a roti made with corn flour. The combination is superb and very unique to Punjabi cooking.
Nutritional information
| Typical values* | per Serving |
|---|---|
| Calories | 53 |
| Fat (g) | 4.0 |
| of which saturates (g) | 2.2 |
| Carbohydrates (g) | 2.3 |
| of which sugars (g) | 2.0 |
| Fibre (g) | 1.6 |
| Protein (g) | 2.1 |
| Salt (mg) | 0.70 |
This goes well with
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Comments
Comments (14)
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Pat
Hi Hari,
I notice this dish skips the cumin seeds, onion and fenugreek leaves which are in the Saag Paneer recipe - I'm curious as to if you can elaborate why?
I didn't have paneer but I was combing over the recipe and noticed the discrepancy, so I combined what else each recipe had missing from the other (the Saag Paneer doesn't mention using mustard greens) and it was excellent (i used the instant pot pressure cooker & hand blender method - but only tossed in the greens & cooked the rest of the spices in a separate pan for the masala) - really impressed some friends who are big fans of Indian food.
We lucked out on timing because we're currently getting fresh mustard greens & spinach from a local organic farm. Next time I must try it with your homemade paneer recipe :)
Thank you!-
Hari Ghotra
Hi Pat There are many different ways to make saag and my method varies depending on how I feel. I tried to keep this one really simple limiting the use of spices because it's not a dish that many people would opt for and is very much a traditional home style dish made with mustard greens. This is actually very close to my mums recipe. You can add cumin and fenugreek and I may well add this to the recipe as an option. With the saag paneer I like to use spinach rather then mustard greens because it's a more common dish and people are used to seeing it on menus in restaurants. They are more likely to cook it with spinach as they can get hold of spinach. I don't want people to be put off if they can get hold of mustard greens. Hope this helps? Thanks Hari
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Daisy
Hi Hari,
I haven't got a pressure cooker, but would like to buy one. Which one do you use?
Thank you!-
Hari Ghotra
Hi Daisy I have a little one that I bought from India and its totally battered but get one that you can afford and if you are not going to use it too often you don't want one that is huge. With this recipe you can also just use a normal pan and boil the greens and fry the ginger, garlic, chillies with the butter and tomatoes in a separate pan then add to the greens and blitz it all together too. Let me know what you think of this dish. Hari
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Sam
Hi Hari, can I use this curry recipe as it is to cook meat in, for example lamb saag?
Or do I need to modify the recipe?
Thanks!-
Hari Ghotra
Hi sam try this one http://www.harighotra.co.uk/lamb-with-spinach-recipe - is this what you were after? Thanks
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Colin
Hi,
This recipe sounds wonderful but I don't have a pressure cooker. How would this be made using a conventional pot?-
Hari Ghotra
Hi Colin Yes you can do this in a normal pot - I would cook your greens (or blanch them very quickly) then remove and refresh in cold water. Blitz to make a puree then in a second pan heat the butter fry the finely chopped garlic with some cumin seeds, add ginger, chillies and tomatoes and cook to a pulp add salt. stir into the pureed greens. I would also add some dried fenugreek powder to this too. Does that help? Hari
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Paul smith
Thanks that was and is the best saag curry i have ever had thankyou-
Hari Ghotra
Hi Paul Praise indeed! That's fantastic, so glad you loved it - This is a real family dish for me. Thanks for commenting and enjoying. Hari
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Hari
Hi George - this is a classic! Let me know how you get on and don't forget to take some pics would love to see your dish. post on facebook or tweet me -
George
I was planning on cooking a spinach curry toniht. Think I've found my recipe! -
Jude
This is one of my favourite dishes. It is not only tasty, but really healthy. Great recipe!
Pat
Thanks again,
Pat
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