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Remember how Popeye used to devour the green stuff by cans full and acquire superhuman strength to vanquish the baddies in a blink or with a wink at Sweet Pea? Who doesn’t know that spinach, loaded with iron and other nutrients, is good, nay great, for us? It’s only those who have to watch their blood pressure or have a problem with kidneys are advised to go slow with it. Fortunately, we have never had a problem with palak — it was served at home in the hills in myriad forms — thick broth-like kaapha, tempered with whole red chillies fried in ghee or as tinariya-tapkiya where the individual leaves preserved their identity and that tasted divine with steamed rice and ghee.
A large leaf offered as a bhaja, peeping through a thin batter veil, is irresistible. We continue to remember gratefully our friend Sudhir Tandon of TV, who introduced us to the joys of palak-laced paneerwale chawal chhole in Hauz Kazi some years back. We felt that delectable as the dish was, it skimped on palak. The present recipe seeks
to do justice to palak and dispenses with chhole and paneer to lighten
the one-dish meal fit for prince and pauper alike in summers.
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The
passage of time brought us in contact with many fancy dishes — green
pasta, coloured and flavoured with spinach, and eggs Neapolitan,
served on a mossy emerald bed, not to forget the desi fare like
saag gosht. We do enjoy the other saag (sarson) and
relish with gusto the methi greens but none can replace the
palak preference on our plate. We take equal pleasure in a spinach
quiche and palakwali dal.