Topic: Alternatives to spinach for Sag Aloo ?

[DalPuri]

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

[Peripatetic Phil]

taken from here:
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.

[DalPuri]

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


One day, i'll find that book too.
cheers, frank.

[gary]

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