Sarson ka Saag

Punjabi mustard greens cooked down for hours, thickened with maize flour and finished with white butter

Origin: Amritsar & the Punjab, India

From the journey of Mustard.

This is the dish of the Punjabi winter, and it is one of the few great dishes in the world built on the leaf of a spice plant rather than its seed. From December the fields around Amritsar and Ludhiana turn a solid yellow as the mustard flowers, and the young leaves are at their best before the plant runs to seed. They are bitter, faintly peppery, and coarse, and the traditional treatment is to cook them for a very long time with softer greens against them: spinach for body, bathua for sourness, and sometimes radish tops or fenugreek leaves. Two hours is not unusual and three is better, until the whole thing collapses into a coarse dark green mass with no leaf shape left in it. The thickening is maize flour, stirred in towards the end, and it does two things: it binds the water the greens release and it echoes the makki di roti the dish is eaten with. That pairing is fixed. Sarson da saag te makki di roti is spoken as one phrase, and the coarse yellow maize flatbread, patted out by hand because it has no gluten to roll, is not an accompaniment so much as the other half. The finish is fat and it is meant to be immoderate. A spoonful of makhan, the white unsalted butter skimmed from home-churned curd, is dropped on top and allowed to melt into the greens, and ghee goes into the tempering. In a cold Punjabi January nobody apologises for it. The traditional method involves a great deal of pounding. The cooked greens are mashed in the pot with a wooden ghotna rather than blended, which leaves a texture that a processor cannot reproduce: rough, uneven, and still recognisably leaves.

Ingredients

Greens

750 g mustard greens (sarson), thick stalks removed, roughly chopped
250 g spinach, roughly chopped
150 g bathua (chenopodium) or additional spinach
2 whole green chillies, slit
30 g fresh ginger, roughly chopped
6 cloves garlic, peeled
1.5 tsp salt, or to taste
500 ml water

To Thicken

4 tbsp maize flour (makki ka atta)

Tempering

4 tbsp ghee
1 whole large onion, finely chopped
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 tbsp fresh ginger, julienned
2 whole dried red chillies
1 tsp Kashmiri red chilli powder

To Finish

2 tbsp white butter (makhan) or unsalted butter, to serve

Method

Wash the greens in several changes of water; mustard leaves hold a great deal of grit. Strip the leaves from any stalk thicker than a pencil.
Put all the greens into a large heavy pot with the slit chillies, chopped ginger, whole garlic cloves, salt, and the water. Bring to the boil, cover, and simmer over a low heat for at least an hour and a half, and preferably two.
Uncover and check: the leaves should have lost all structure and the liquid should be dark and reduced. If there is a lot of water left, boil it off uncovered for ten minutes.
Mash the greens directly in the pot with a wooden masher or the end of a rolling pin for a good five minutes, until coarse and uniform with no whole leaves left.
Sprinkle the maize flour over the surface a spoonful at a time, whisking or stirring hard after each addition so it does not lump. Cook over a low heat for fifteen minutes, stirring often, until thickened and no longer tasting raw.
For the tempering, heat the ghee in a frying pan and cook the chopped onion over a medium heat for ten to twelve minutes until deep golden brown.
Add the chopped garlic, julienned ginger, and dried chillies and fry for two minutes, then stir in the chilli powder and take off the heat immediately.
Pour the tempering into the saag, reserving a spoonful. Stir through and simmer together for five minutes.
Serve very hot in bowls with the reserved tempering spooned over, a knob of white butter melting on top, makki di roti, sliced onion, and jaggery.

Notes

Mustard greens are sold by South Asian grocers through the winter and are increasingly in supermarkets. If unavailable, use two thirds kale or collard greens to one third rocket, which approximates the bitterness and the pepper, though it will not be the same dish. The proportion of mustard to other greens is the thing cooks argue over. Three to one in favour of mustard is a Punjabi ratio and is genuinely bitter; two to one is more forgiving. Below half mustard it is a spinach dish with ambitions. It is better on the second and third day, and it freezes very well, which is why it is made in large quantity. Reheat with a splash of water and a fresh spoonful of ghee. Makki di roti is made from maize flour and hot water alone, has no gluten, and must be patted out between the palms or pressed between two sheets of plastic rather than rolled. Serve with a lump of jaggery to finish, which is the traditional close to the meal.

The Gastrographer

Name: Sarson ka Saag
Prep time: 25 min
Cook time: 2 h 15 min
Total time: 2 h 40 min
Yield: 6
Cuisine: India
Ingredients: 750 g mustard greens (sarson), thick stalks removed, roughly chopped; 250 g spinach, roughly chopped; 150 g bathua (chenopodium) or additional spinach; 2 whole green chillies, slit; 30 g fresh ginger, roughly chopped; 6 cloves garlic, peeled; 1.5 tsp salt, or to taste; 500 ml water; 4 tbsp maize flour (makki ka atta); 4 tbsp ghee; 1 whole large onion, finely chopped; 4 cloves garlic, finely chopped; 1 tbsp fresh ginger, julienned; 2 whole dried red chillies; 1 tsp Kashmiri red chilli powder; 2 tbsp white butter (makhan) or unsalted butter, to serve

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Journey Point Map Key

Ingredient originTrade or transit route

Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control