Curry Recipes Online
British Indian Restaurant Recipes - Starters & Side Dishes => Starters and Side Dishes Chat => Topic started by: Peripatetic Phil on October 16, 2011, 03:42 PM
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As is fairly commonly known these days (it was far less well known when I started eating curries almost fifty years ago), "Sag Aloo" doesn't necessarily contain spinach : the name of the spinach-specific variant is "Aloo Palak". Well, despite the fact that it doesn't /necessarily/ contain spinach, that is the only green vegetable that I have ever used to make it, basically because I hate most green vegetables [1] with a vengeance -- a hatred that others might reserve for fox hunters or paedophiles ... Anyhow. Today, while out cycling, I passed a fruit-and-vegetable stall on the outskirts of Marden and stopped to see what was on display. There were some small and delicious-looking tomatoes, so I decided to go back later in the car while shopping for cat food. I went back this afternoon, and as well as the tomatoes bought some beets (for my wife : she likes Borscht) and some Rainbow Chard for myself. Now I have never eaten Rainbow Chard in my life, so I have not yet acquired an inbuilt hatred for it, and I thought it /might/ go well in Sag Aloo. And it did. It was /excellent/, at least as good as spinach and perhaps even better. So my question is : what other green vegetables have you tried in Sag Aloo, and what are your recommendations and favourites ?
** Phil.
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[1] With the notable exceptions of some Chinese green things : Pak Choi, Choi Sam (for crispy Chinese "seaweed"), Ung Choi and Chinese leaf.
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That's a lot of hate you have there Phil. ;)
Can't really add much to this, as I've never used anything in place of spinach. Never felt the need as it works so well. Also, I've never come across one that doesn't contain spinach. Do you actually like it with spinach?
I am intrigued by the use of chard though, although I can't see it working as well as spinach. If I remember I'll pick some up and give it a whirl.
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That's a lot of hate you have there Phil. ;)
Well, all right, I exaggerated : I don't hate paedophiles quite as much as I hate school greens !
Do you actually like it with spinach?
Yes, I love it : in fact, my normal choice of side dish to accompany a curry is either Bombay Aloo, Aloo Sag or Mushroom Bhaji -- rarely go outside those three.
I am intrigued by the use of chard though, although I can't see it working as well as spinach. If I remember I'll pick some up and give it a whirl.
Do, I recommend it. It will need more cooking than young leaf spinach, you will need to remove the stem (http://localfoods.about.com/od/preparationtips/ss/howtostemchard.htm) before you start, and once it's cooked through I recommend transferring it to a chopping board and reducing it to approximately 1/2" square pieces before mixing it in with the potatoes, but it has an excellent texture and flavour and seems to really go well in this dish.
** Phil.
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Hi Phil,
I also hate greens and therefore I never knowingly order anything that contains the stuff. With that said, I can see shredded savoy cabbage working quite well and would suggest sweating it down in a little butter or ghee first, season well then add it minutes before the end of the dish?
Ray :)
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Savoy cabbage, eh ? OK, I'll give it a go ('erself will always eat up any that I don't use). But not yet, because I have used only two chard leaves so far, and there were at least eight in total, all for just one pound ! I have to say, it was so good I have eaten no meat at all today -- just frozen paratha and sag aloo for lunch, then cold sag aloo for dinner. Yum yum !
** Phil.
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As is fairly commonly known these days (it was far less well known when I started eating curries almost fifty years ago), "Sag Aloo" doesn't necessarily contain spinach : the name of the spinach-specific variant is "Aloo Palak". Well, despite the fact that it doesn't /necessarily/ contain spinach, that is the only green vegetable that I have ever used to make it
Hi Phil
This is a bit confusing. can you explain...
I think if I ordered a simple Saag Aloo and it arrived without any Saag,
it would be winging its way straight back to the kitchen.
Saag dishes contain Spinach, if ordered in Bangladeshi run BIR's
Palak dishes contain Spinach, if ordered in Pakistani/Indian run BIR's
My latest veg fad is Cauliflower Stalks, cooked AL dente in a Handi Beef Curry or a Bhuna Chilli Beef . I even use the stalks in my curry base now,
instead of my usual white cabbage.
And to think, I always used to bin it - dumb!!!
cheers Chewy
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Hi All :)
Beetroot tops are a good source of spinach like greens, Chard is good but a touch bitter all from the same family
What now happens is the use of Leaf beet aka Perpetual spinach ( with the thick white stem ) very good and cheap as its a cut and come again, years ago it was the annual spinach ( what popeye use to eat) The best
There are some Oak leaf lettuces which are great but you will have to grow them The best way as with most veg
Hope this is of some use :)
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Heya Phil
I would think most green leaf vegetables would work quite well in place of spinach if cooked and treated in a similar way - blanched/boiled till tender, drained/moisture squeezed out and chopped/shredded and 'bunged in'! I've always had a hankering for mustard greens cooked in place of spinach but I've never really found a convenient source for them although I haven't really looked that hard. I may even try growing some myself just to try.
Regarding side dishes, do try 'Aloo Methi' (potatoes with fresh fenugreek)* if you ever come across it on a restaurant menu or if you know the restaurant/waiters reasonably well ask them to make one for you, most will happily oblige. I've only ever had one waiter look at me in an odd way when I've asked them to make me one and that restaurant wasn't up to much anyway!
It's quite delicious and became my favourite side dish after trying it, I now usually split one of those and a Saag bhaji with my partner if and when we eat out.
But to answer your question, I've never tried anything in place of spinach, which I usually cook from fresh leaves rather than tinned.
*The fact that most restaurants will make that for you with fresh fenugreek leaves on hand makes you wonder what else they use fresh fenugreek for huh?
Good Karma!
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Green Leafy Vegetables
I love to cook green leafy vegetables in any form. Who wouldn't??? I keep adding spinach, methi, amaranth, etc. in my cooking regularly once a week. Spinach has a rich source of Iron. Of course, all greens contains Iron in different proportions. We very well know that iron content in our body will give strength and prevents from anemia/weakness. It helps keep your body brisk all day.
I remember a greens seller in my hometown who sells fresh green leafy vegetables everyday on our streets. She had many different varieties of greens. Of which i remember only few of these,
Thandukeerai(Keerai in tamil means Greens),
Araikeerai(Amaranth contains vitamin A),
Mulakeerai,
Vendayakeerai(Methi/Fenugreek leaves),
Vallaraikeerai(said to be good for memory power),
Mudakathankeerai(cures arthritis),
Sirukeerai(small leafy greens),
Murungaikeerai(leaves of drumstick tree),
Thooduvalaikeerai(removes congestion due to cold),
Manathakkalikeerai(good for stomach & mouth ulcers),
Ponnangannikeerai(improves eyesight),
Kezhanellikeerai(cures jaundice)
Pasalaikeerai(Palak or spinach),
Pulichakeerai(Gongura).
quote from here
http://aahaar.blogspot.com/2007/04/methi-dal-jfi-wbb-green-leafy.html (http://aahaar.blogspot.com/2007/04/methi-dal-jfi-wbb-green-leafy.html)
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Sorry, I accidentally overlooked this when it was first posted, and just spotted it today when others started replying.
This is a bit confusing. can you explain...
I think if I ordered a simple Saag Aloo and it arrived without any Saag,
it would be winging its way straight back to the kitchen.
Of course !
Saag dishes contain Spinach, if ordered in Bangladeshi run BIR's
Palak dishes contain Spinach, if ordered in Pakistani/Indian run BIR's
There I respectfully beg to disagree : "saag" simply refers to a generic green leafed vegetable; "palak" is the specific word for spinach (both are Hindi).
** Phil.
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(http://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/imagehost/pics/c46c535963ffa651e0225daa0b0c4840.jpg)
If I were Eve in the Garden of Eden, the genesis of my fall from grace might not be the rosy apple, but the seemingly mundane edible greens. Such is the sway that this earthy bounty holds over my taste and imagination. They beckon me at markets with their dewy-fresh looks in variegated shades of green and their promise of glowing health. Thus, each weekend sees the grand entry of a motley bunch into my kitchen. Some of them get used up quickly in a zuNka, aloo-somegreenorother, or a soup. Then my inner child awakens and begins to clamour for something different. This would trigger a search through my cookbooks while the greens waited in anticipation and then shrivelled up with disappointment. For, my cookbooks have plenty of vegetable recipes, but leafy vegetables are almost an afterthought. Even in books that provide a respectable number of greens recipes, the varieties are restricted to spinach and methi, and sometimes mustard leaves. Part of this negligence stems out of certain inherent traits of edible greens; namely, they tend to be stubbornly local and seasonal. Most of them are not amenable to traveling long distances; hence, there are variations in the types of greens found even between neighbouring states. Cookery books intended to reach a pan-Indian or global audience cannot afford to waste space on recipes with main ingredients that are not found everywhere or at all times. It is perhaps a reflection of this constraint that the only cookbook in English on green leafy vegetables in India is self-published by the author.
Cooking with Green Leafy Vegetables by Shyamala Kallianpur should not have gone out of print. It is the only book that provides recipes for over 30 different kinds of edible greens found in India. It has clear colour photographs of about 35 varieties of leafy vegetables. More importantly, greens are treated with the care and respect they deserve. With a couple of exceptions (such as the Sindhi Sai Bhaji), the recipes never involve pressure-cooking the leafy vegetables or overpowering them with spices. They are steamed, sometimes fried, or cooked just until soft or wilted. Thus, the greens retain their flavour, colour, and nutrients in the final dish. The author also demonstrates a meticulousness that is not often seen in Indian cookbooks. For example, she explains the difference between
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(http://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/imagehost/pics/c46c535963ffa651e0225daa0b0c4840.jpg)
taken from here:
http://www.nandyala.org/mahanandi/archives/category/indian-vegetables/page/2/ (http://www.nandyala.org/mahanandi/archives/category/indian-vegetables/page/2/)
Now /that/, Sir, is a find : even to a veggie-hater such as myself (blame my prep. school -- they believed that forcing greens down a child's throat until he threw up was the best way to encourage youngsters to eat school meals), that book looks a gem. I may even invest in a copy, if I can find one ...
** Phil.
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you're welcome phil. ;)
yeah, i had Mrs Rollings with her HUGE varicose veins standin over me in primary school makin me eat me veg. cryin me eyes out with her saying, "if you dont eat all your veg, we'll make you feed it to the pigs"
and to a 6 year old, that sounded really frightening at the time! hahahaha ;D
there's still a few standards i still cant eat though, like sprouts and swede, but i do like a lot of the indian veg.
actually, it was eating curry that turned me onto veg. because as a kid, i only ate me nan's runner beans ;D
It has always saddened me though, growing up around indian food stores in wimbledon and seeing the huge choice of indian veg that never make it into the BIR's.
There's so much more to curried veg than onion potato and carrot, with a few tokens like spinach or mushrooms chucked in for good measure.
I've been lucky in the fact that around wimbledon, there are many sri lankans and, towards tooting,, pakistani's.
In both these cuisines you will find more veg being used in restaurants than indian (which seems restricted to home use only). drumstick, banana flower, karela, various whole beans to name a few.
mmmmmn drumstick curry :D
(http://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/imagehost/pics/3f9498882fe784f78aeba4a407ff5494.jpg)
One day, i'll find that book too.
cheers, frank. ;)
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Saag dishes contain Spinach, if ordered in Bangladeshi run BIR's
Palak dishes contain Spinach, if ordered in Pakistani/Indian run BIR's
There I respectfully beg to disagree : "saag" simply refers to a generic green leafed vegetable; "palak" is the specific word for spinach (both are Hindi).
** Phil.
Both statements are true really :) Just a matter of semantics.
I wonder if Watercress would work...
Gary