Indian Saturday #2: Saag aloo

Along with the rogan josh I also dished up saag aloo.

I bought Gordon Ramsay’s Great Escape the other week and until I saw a photo of him in a vest started to quite fancy him. Which is irrelevant but I needed to share.

For this you need:
400g of fresh spinach
600g of potatoes (preferably floury ones such as Maris Piper)
1 teaspoon of black mustard seeds
1 teaspoon of onion seeds (I couldn’t find these so left them out…)
3 cloves of garlic
1 green chilli
1 teaspoon of salt
½ a teaspoon of cayenne pepper
1 onion
Lemon juice
Gordon Ramsay’s recipe also has a pinch of asafoetida (this is a spice that comes from the gum of the Ferula asafoetida plant. Tiny amounts are used as a digestive aid – oooh check me out!)

Before I begin I’d like to give a quick word of warning about cayenne pepper (or as Charlotte and I insist on calling it: Kanye pepper. “I’m gunna let you finish, but Imtiaz Qureshi makes the best curry of all time!”)
The pepper was tightly packed in the jar when I tried to measure it out onto a teaspoon which meant I had to shake it about a bit and got some on my hands. I’m very cautious when I use chillies and things so washed them straight away. This didn’t stop a bit making its way just under my thumb nail. I washed my hands in freezing water eight times to try and make the burning stop but to no avail. By midnight, four hours later, the intense fiery pain had let up slightly but even last night there was still a horrible lava-hot feeling when I touched anything. So be incredibly careful with this sodding stuff.

Wilt the spinach in a pan of boiling salted water for one minute. Drain it in a colander and rinse with cold water to perk it up a bit. Squeeze out all the lovely looking greenish water and roughly chop. Stick these to one side until everything else is done.

Finely chop the garlic, deseed the chilli and do the same. Cut the onion in half and finely slice this too. Peel the potatoes and chop them in to cubes.

I used a medium sized pan for this which I think was a lot easier than the frying pan the recipe suggests. Heat the oil and add the mustard and onion seeds (and asafoetida if you’ve managed to find any). The seeds start to pop when they get hot which is marvellous fun and once this happens throw in the onion, garlic and the chilli. After three or four minutes dump the potatoes in and shake the salt and cayenne pepper over them to season. Stir these around a lot while they fry on a high heat for a few minutes.

Pour in four or five tablespoons of water and stick a lid on it. Lower the heat and cook for twenty minutes to half an hour depending on the size of the diced potatoes. You need to keep moving this around so the potatoes don’t stick. I stirred mine and they broke up quite a bit so shaking the pan would probably be a better idea. Just like the curry if it seems too dry add a splash more water.

Chuck in the spinach and a squeeze of lemon juice and gently stir it all in. Let the spinach heat up for a minute or two, move to a bowl and stick in front of a hungry friend.