Vaisakhi Recipe: Sarson Ka Sag

Sarson ka sag is traditionally a Punjabi dish, often made on Vaisakhi but not exclusively. It’s totally delicious, vegetarian and incorporates one of the world healthiest veggies—mustard greens—in a way that even your kids might eat. Mustard greens are an excellent anti-cancer vegetable, can lower cholesterol and have been known to be beneficial for colds, arthritis and depression. Good stuff.

The recipe below serves 6.

Ingredients:

4 small bunches (2 large)/ 1 kg mustard greens (sarson), chopped finely
1 bunch/ 1/4 kg spinach, chopped finely
4 cloves garlic minced
1 inch/ 2 cm piece ginger, minced
1 onion
2 green chilies, minced
2 red chilies (if you like it spicy)
2 tbsp. of corn flour or corn meal (alternatively you can use gram flour, sieved)
4 tbsp. butter or ghee
Pinch of cumin
Salt to taste

Instructions:

Boil all the greens until soft (about 20-30 min). Drain the water but reserve about 1/2 cup of the liquid. Mash the leafy vegetables well (I actually had to chop the greens as they were soft but not mashable) and set aside.

Heat 4 tbsp of butter or ghee and add the ginger, onion, garlic, green chilies and broken red chilies. Sautee until brown. Then add the mashed greens, cumin and a dash of salt.

Mix the corn flour in a little water to make a paste and add it to the spiced greens mixture. Simmer for at least 20 minutes together with the reserved 1/2 cup of liquid from cooking the greens, but it can be longer to enhance flavor. Serve with Indian naan or Makki Ki Roti for a meal.* Enjoy!

This recipe was adapted from the following sources:
http://festivals.iloveindia.com/baisakhi/sarsoon-saag.html
http://www.theholidayspot.com/baisakhi/recipes/
http://www.momrecipebook.com/details/sarson-ka-sag.asp
http://www.sanjeevkapoor.com/sarson-ka-saag.aspx

Notes and Modifications:

Take out the spicy chilies to make it kid friendly. And if your kids have a green veggie aversion, you can really mix up the cultures and put the green stuff in a tortilla with some black beans and cheese and make a quesadilla.

I’d like to experiment with this recipe a bit as I bet any of the leafy green family- collard greens, kale, etc. could work great.

* We ate ours with some leftover Palestinian tahini a friend had brought to our house for a family brunch the day before, and some red lentil soup as well. I must say, it all went pretty awesome together.