Two-Minute Cooking School 3: Aaloo-paalak

Aaloo-paalak and Paranthas (Click for bigger pic)

Come on over for dinner! :-)

Recipe for Aaloo-paalak:
Aaloo-paalak is a North Indian dish. Aaloo is potato and paalak is spinach in most Indian languages. This is a yummy curry of potato and spinach. As with most other recipes in the Two Minute Cooking School, this may not be 100% authentic. But I can vouch for the fact that it is 100% yummy. And I am supported by my friends who have tasted this creation.

Ingredients: Potatoes and spinach in proportion. Little bit of chopped onions. A tiny amount of chopped tomatoes. Tomatoes are optional, but I like to use them. If not tomatoes, you will need lemon juice. Dried red chillies, as per your preferred spice level. You could use green chillies instead, but dried red chilli in green leaf curries is a South Indian tradition. I like the flavor of the red chilli in this dish. A tiny amount (and I do mean tiny) of your preferred curry masala powder. This masala is optional too. Tiny amount of ginger garlic-paste. Salt to taste.

Most of the ingredients mentioned above are required only in "tiny" quantities because spinach and potatoes together are quite flavorful in themselves. The taste of other ingredients must be really small and subtle, and not overwhelm the taste of spinach and potatoes.

Wash the spinach thoroughly. Put the wet and dripping spinach leaves into a cooking vessel, cover and keep on the stove-top. Set the flame between low and medium. You don't need to add any extra water to cook spinach, the wetness of the dripping leaves is enough. You will know the spinach is cooked when you open the vessel after a few minutes and see that the fluffy leaves have settled down into a soggy dark mass. Cook potatoes separately by boiling in water or using a pressure cooker. Peel and chop them into medium-sized pieces. Spinach and potatoes take different durations to cook. So, we cook them separately and not together in the curry.

Heat a little bit of oil in a pan. Just enough oil to fry the onions in. Add dried red chillies broken into pieces. When the red chillies turn a slight brown, add the chopped onions and fry them. When the onions are fried, add a tiny amount of ginger-garlic paste and little bit of chopped tomatoes. Fry some more, until the tomatoes become almost pulpy. Add the spinach and potatoes. Add salt to taste. If you did not use tomatoes, add lemon juice now. Add really tiny amount of the curry masala powder. Mix well. If the mix is too thick, you can add some water. Cover the pan and cook on a low flame for 4-5 minutes.

Aaloo-paalak is ready! You may serve it in a large cup garnished with a fresh slice of tomato and half a teaspoon of butter on top. This is great to eat with all kinds of Indian breads (roti, naan, chapaathi, paranthas, etc.), and also with rice.

Paranthas in picture above:
Featured above are Kawan brand frozen plain paranthas and they are really good. Just get them out of the freezer and heat on flat pan until they are golden brown on both sides. Transfer from pan to plate and gently pat on the sides, turning them round and round. Fluffy, layered, yummy paranthas are ready in two minutes!