Saag
Local name : ਸਾਗ
Mustard greens and spinach stewed for an hour, thickened with maize flour and lifted by ginger and green chilli.
Photo : Biswarup Ganguly · CC BY 3.0
- Prep
- 20 min
- Cook
- 75 min
- Total
- 95 min
- Serves
- 4
- Difficulty
- Easy
Method
- Wash the greens in several changes of water and strip out the tough stems. Cut the leaves into wide ribbons.
- Put the greens in a heavy pot with 300 ml water, the ginger, half the garlic and the chillies. Cover and cook on low heat for 45 minutes.
- Crush with a masher or pulse with a stick blender. The texture stays coarse.
- Slake the maize flour in 100 ml cold water, then stir it into the pot.
- Cook uncovered for 25 more minutes. The saag thickens and loses its raw bite.
- Melt the butter in a small pan, brown the onion and remaining garlic, then pour it over the saag.
- Season with salt and serve with maize bread or rice.
The maize flour does two jobs at once: it binds the greens and rounds off the sharp edge of the mustard. For a vegan version, swap the butter for mustard oil heated to smoking point and cooled for a minute.
