Aish Cooks

This recipe is mom’s version of the original that my grandmother used to make – kadanja keerai – she cooked the greens with onion, tomatoes, some whole spices and then went the authentic mortar & pestle way to make a nice creamy puree of the greens. It always used to taste amazing with hot rice and ghee. Now that I think of it, it was really the only way my sister and I would enjoy eating the green vegetable. Now everything evolves  so did this recipe. Mom made it a lot simpler using the pressure cooker and a food blender. So in 3 simple steps you have a super yummy curry that is finger licking good – this one’s a keeper for those rough weeknights. Even D, who’s a stickler for non-plain-curries liked it! We enjoyed this curry along with another weeknight winner – panner burji – and not only was it the perfect combination to have both vegetables and protein on your plate for the meal, but together they got made in about 30 minutes if you can multitask just a little bit 🙂

Simple Spinach Curry / Pureed Greens

Cooking Time: 20 minutes | Serves: 4 – 6

Ingredients:

Set-1

1. 12 oz spinach, cleaned
2. 1 onion, diced
3. 2 tomatoes, diced
4. 1-2 green chilies (to taste)
5. 1 pod garlic, crushed (optional)
6. 1″ ginger, chopped (optional)

Set-2

1. 2 tbsp oil
2. 1/4 tsp fenugreek seeds
3. 1/2 tsp mustard seeds
4. 1 tbsp broken urad dal
5. 2 dry red chilies, broken
6. few curry leaves (optional)
7. salt to taste

Method:

1. Cook: Pressure cook or steam cook spinach, cut onions, tomatoes, green chilies, ginger and garlic with 3/4 – 1 cup water until well done.
2. Puree: Allow to cool, puree in a blender or food processor.
3. Tempering: Heat some oil in a pan, add broken red chilies, mustard seeds, urad seeds, fenugreek seeds, curry leaves and temper on med-heat until mustard seeds crackle and urad seeds are slightly brown.
4. Pour in pureed spinach mixture and take care to avoid splatter from curry on skin (right when it makes contact with the hot oil mix).
5. Stir well, add salt to taste (and a pinch of red chili powder/ Cayenne pepper if more spice is desired).
6. Simmer for 2-3 minutes and turn off the heat.

Serve hot with rice and ghee, or naan/rotis.