23/07/2020
Dhaba style smoked made with love using our veggies by one of our esteemed customers ... below
"I actually followed a couple of different recipes.
I boiled one bunch of mustard greens with two packs of baby spinach leaves, two medium turnips, one 8” size white radish, one inch piece of ginger and about 8 cloves of garlic. Use only the leaves of mustard greens, else your saag may become too stringy. Would be good to add salt as well.
Don’t add too much water because the leaves are also going to release water. About two large cups of water is good.
2-3 whistles in the pressure cooker. Roughly grind in the blender along with two tablespoons of makkai ( maize) atta when cool and keep aside.
Separately, in a handi or other vessel, melt about 2 tablespoons of butter. Then fry 6 cloves of chopped garlic until soft, then another one inch piece of ginger finely chopped, one medium sized onion along with two finely chopped green chilies (deseeded so less heat) and finally one medium sized tomato ( both finely chopped). Let each of these ingredients cook a little before adding the next ingredient. Add salt along with tomato so everything gets mashed. Then add one teaspoon jeera powder ( recipe called for Dhania powder, but I didn’t have any), one teaspoon Kashmiri chili powder and one teaspoon amchur powder. Stir until all masalas are mixed and then add saag paste. Adjust salt to taste.
Turn of the stove and smoke this dish. To do so, heat a small piece of coal until it turns almost white. Put the coal in a small steel Katori( bowl) and place on top of the saag inside the dish in which it was cooked. Pour a couple of drops of ghee directly on the coal and cover the saag handi for 10-15 seconds. Not more than that. Open the lid and remove the steel bowl and the coal from the handi.
Finally, in a separate tadka pan, heat 1-2 tablespoons of ghee and fry 6 garlic cloves and two dry red chilies and pour it over the saag.
It can be made vegan by replacing butter and ghee with oil.
Garlic is optional.
Smoking the dish is optional.
I know I’ve used a lot of garlic but this dish doesn’t reek of it. The flavor gets absorbed nicely."
