Chana palak/ chick peas with spinach gravy

Hello all! Today's dish comprises of protein plus iron with chickpeas and spinach. Both rich in nutrients and this dish is made many ways. I chose to use spinach gravy for this. Years back when I was still a new bride and yet learning basics of cooking, I saw a programme on tv which showed how to cook chickpeas with spinach and I copied the whole thing by looking at the recipe but being a novice I doubled the quantity of masalas/spices making it too spicy to eat but still it was yummy. I did not attempt it again till yesterday when I recalled this dish. This time I kept the spice level in control and result was wow. It is so easy that even bachelors and novices can also cook this dish in jiffy.
Ingredients:

• 200gms chickpeas/chana
• 1 cup spinach
• 1 onion
• 1 tomato
• 2-3 cloves of garlic
• 1 small piece of ginger
• 3-4 green chillies
• a small pinch of asafoetida/hing
• 1 small piece of  cinnamon stick/dalchini
• 2-3 cloves/laung
• 1 small tejpatta
• 1tbsp red chilli powder
• 1tbsp coriander powder
• 1tbsp garam masala powder
• 1tsp turmeric powder
• salt to taste
• 1 tsp cumin seeds
• 2tbsp oil or ghee

Method:
Soak chickpeas overnight. Drain and boil them with little bit of salt. Keep aside. Chop the spinach, blanch and make puree out of it.  To get more taste I grated onion, tomato, garlic and ginger separately. In a pan heat oil, add cumin seeds, once it splutters add chopped green chillies. Add cloves, cinnamon stick, tej patta and saute it. Add hing and then add grated onions. Saute the onions but do not let them brown too much. Add grated ginger and garlic and saute till raw smell goes. Just be careful not to burn them. Finally add grated tomato and stir. Once oil separates, add boiled chana and little water. Cook for few minutes and then add spinach puree. Stir and add  the remaining masalas. Adjust the consistency of gravy. Watch out for salt as chana already had some salt. Once the gravy is cooked, serve it with garnish of your choice. I added onion rings on top. Chana palak can go very well with rice, chapati or pooris.

Hope you liked this dish.

Note: In place of spinach puree you can add chopped spinach and let it cook till it softens. 

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Dal palak ( lentils with spinach)

Hello everyone!  I am back today.. Due to ill health could not update my posts here. Now to start off my today's recipe seems very common and I have had read and tasted many versions of this dish. But the one which really caught my attention was this one. Some months back I had seen this delicious and easy recipe at Deepa's blog  HAMAREE RASOI
I thought wow this has to be very yummy and tasty version and I tried it then only. I had modifed slightly from deepa's post and since then I have made many times. I know many kids do not like spinach but made this way they love it..First hand experience of me.. haha

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup toor dal/arhar dal
• 1 bunch of spinach leaves
• 1tsp haldi/turmeric powder
• 1tsp red chilli powder
• 1tsp amchoor powder or juice of one lemon
• salt to taste
• water as required

For Tadka:

• 1 onion sliced
• 2 tomatoes chopped
• 1tsp chopped ginger
• 2 cloves garlic chopped
• 2 green chillies chopped
• 2tbsp cumin/jeera seeds
• 1 whole dry red chilli
• few spinach leaves 
• 1 tbsp kasoori methi
• 2-3 tbsp ghee
• a pinch of asafoetida/hing

Method:
Wash the dal and soak it for  30mins to 1hour. In pressure cooker, add dal,  water, salt and turmeric and cook it till 1 whistle.  When steam goes down open the cooker to check if dal is done.  If not done cook it some more mins. Lightly  mash the dal with big spoon and add red chilli powder and amchoor or lemon juice. In the mean time, chop the spinach leaves roughly and wash them. Dry them slightly and keep aside. Add a handful of spinach leaves to dal,mix and cover it.
In another pan, heat ghee, add hing. After half a min add jeera and let it splutter. Add onion and saute it for a min and add garlic cloves and ginger then. Slightly saute and add green chillies chopped, then add dry red chilli and  tomatoes to the pan.  Add a pinch of salt  and mix well. Toss in the remaining spinach leaves and kasoori methi and fry it in the pan. The tadka is ready and immediately put it in dal mixture. Adjust consistency of dal and switch the gas off.   Your dal with palak is ready.  Serve it hot with roti chapati or even rice.
The crunchiness of palak with soft dal just added a great flavour and plus the tadka on top made it look real lovely. I made it bit thinner to have with rice. Hope you like this dish.

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Spinach puri-- a guest post

Hello all! Today I am going to introduce you to my eighth guest Nayna Kanbar from simply.food. who is here to share a wonderful healthy spinach poori. Nayna has wonderful varieties of vegetarian recipes from across the world. Read on about her and her blog and recipe.

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About me

Meena asked me to do a guest post for her blog and I am honoured that she thinks my talents are worthy for a blog post at Random Ramblings. I am a contact lens optician and work full time. My family migrated to the UK when I was a child so UK has been my home since childhood. I live with my husband and two daughters. I am a real foodie and spend every available free time in the kitchen. I love cooking and baking, fruit and vegetable carving, and photography. I enjoy creating new fusion dishes and experimenting with Asian and continental flavours. I started my blog simply.food 4 years ago as a place to keep my recipes together, however with time it has grown and received much more recognition and now it has become a routine part of my life. I have contributed recipes for Homebuzz magazine in India and currently am a featured recipe writer for an online magazine in Cambridge. Apart from cooking, I have an obsession with collecting odd crockery and props for my food pictures; I am running out of cupboard space yet I just can’t stop making a purchase when I see a pretty napkin or a unique pot or plate.I think enough ramblings about me and I would like to introduce my recipe. I have chosen spinach puri; this is a firm family favourite and perfect for Sunday brunch or for lunch boxes. I particularly enjoy the recipe as it’s a good way of sneaking spinach in to my unsuspecting family’s diet.

Spinach Puris

Soft and fluffy spicy spinach puris, perfect served with pickle.

Ingredients:

120 grams / 4oz wheat flour

30 grams / 1oz millet flour

½ teaspoon ginger paste

60 grams / 2oz baby spinach (more or less to taste)

100 ml water (approx)

1 teaspoon salt

1 green chilli finely chopped

½ teaspoon turmeric

¼ teaspoon black pepper

¼ teaspoon chilli powder

Water for making dough

Sunflower oil for deep frying.

Method:

1. Wash the spinach and chop it finely and keep aside

2. Add the millet flour and wheat flour in a bowl and mix well. Add 1 tablespoon oil to the

flour and rub it in.

3. Add the salt, pepper, chilli powder, turmeric, chopped spinach, ginger paste and green

chilli to the flour and mix well.

4. Add a little water at a time to form semi firm dough. Knead and cover the dough and keep

the dough aside for 3o minutes.

5. After 30 minutes heat the oil in a deep pan.

6. Divide the dough into walnut sized balls and roll out small puris approx 4 inches in

diameter and 2-3 mm thick.

7. Deep fry on medium heat until golden brown.

8. Drain on kitchen paper.

Serve with pickle or curry of choice.

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Isn't this yummy and tasty poori? I am sure all of us would want to grab this. Do visit Nayna space to learn more veg recipes and over to you for your lovely feedback.

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Palak khichdi.... a guest post

Hello everyone! Today I have my third guest with me here. Jillu from Jiya's delicacy is sharing a very nutritious recipe with us. Check out her blog for amazing yummy dishes. So lets not wait and I would let Jillu introduce herself and her dish.

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Introduction about me:

My name is Jillu. I am into blogging for the past 3 years. I love
to try different dishes and thats how my interest towards
cooking developed. I am enjoying my blogging. Do visit my
space: Jiya's delicacy




INTRODUCTION ABOUT THE RECIPE:


This dish is a very good recipe. Its very healthy as it contains
Spinach , dal, rice together. The content of Carb, protein
and Vitamins is adequate. It did not taste as if we had added
greens to the dish. Ideal for tiffin box meal. Kids would love it
too.. Its very simple to make. A one pot meal.

Verdict from my hubby: Wonderful dish with Spinach which
did not seem to be made with Spinach.

Palak Khichdi

Rice -1 cup
Toor dal – ½ cup
Spinach= 1 bunch leaves finely chopped
Onion – 1 finely chopped
Cumin seeds – 1 tsp
Turmeric powder – ¼ tsp
Red chilli powder – ½ tsp
Garam masala – ½ tsp
Oil – 1 tbsp
Salt

To grind:

Coriander leaves – 1 handful
Mint leaves- 1 handful

Green chillies - 2
Ginger garlic paste – 1 tsp
Tomatoes -2
Onion - 1

Method:

1. Wash and soak the dal and rice together for 30 mins.

2. Grind all the ingredients under the 'to grind' ingredients
with little water.

3. Heat the oil in a pressure cooker pan and add the jeera.
When it splutters, add the chopped onion. Fry until golden
brown. Then add the chopped spinach and stir until soft and
wilted.

4. To this, add the ground paste and mix well with salt,
turmeric, red chilli powder and garam masala. Let it cook for
a min.

5. Now add the soaked rice and dal. Add 4 cups water. Cook
for 4-5 whistles in the pressure cooker. If you are using a
normal pan, make sure you cook covered until the rice and dal
is cooked thoroughly.

6. While hot, mix in 1 tsp ghee and serve.

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Thank you Jillu for a wonderful recipe. Friends,please comment and encourage her.

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Healthy Green Roti with spinach

Hello everyone! How have you all been? My today’s recipe Is again a simple yet delicious and healthy roti. Everyone knows the benefits of  greens in our diet, so I won’t start the lecture on it again and I think time for  everyone to be popeye the sailor man again. Ha ha ha… 

Lets begin our spinach roti.

Ingredients: 

1cup chopped greens(  I have used spinach leaves, methi leaves, dill leaves and along with it one more green called khatta)

2green chillies

¼ inch ginger

¼ tsp each of coriander powder, amchur(drymango) powder, red chilli powder, turmeric powder

Salt to taste

Some coriander leaves

2tbsp ghee

Water as needed

Wheat flour for rotis

Method:

Chop all the greens and keep in one cup, chop ginger and green chillies into small pieces. In a bowl, put wheat flour and all greens. Mix it nicely without water, add  salt and other dry masalas including chillies, ginger and green chillies, add ghee also, mix properly and add water slowly to make a nice tight dough. 

Make atta like this.

Heat tawa.  Make balls from wheat flour a size bigger than lemons, roll it and cook it on tawa on both sides till its done, if needed  brush a little oil or ghee for it to cook properly,  keep the flame on medium heat.

Take out on plate and serve it hot with chutneys, tomato sauce or even dahi, you can have it as it is also.

In my home I make this for breakfast but at times when I am not in mood for elaborate dinner I make this as light dinner.  I have used ghee and oil a lot. You can skip the part of extra ghee or oil when you cook.

Hope you like this green, green roti with all leafy vegetables. Let me know what you think.

  Green palak roti is ready to be eaten.

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Mix vegetables in spinach gravy

Hello everyone! My today’s recipe is  mix vegetables in spinach gravy. Earlier I used to make plain spinach and  well not all liked it so had been experimenting. Two months back I made koftas/dumplings in spinach gravy and it was well received.  Last year  I had gone on a weekend break to Alibaug  and while returning from there we stopped at Khargar to have our lunch. My dad loves spinach and  since my parents  don’t  eat onion garlic they ordered spinach without  them.  The dish which came was really yummy with loads of vegetables and even without onion and garlic it still tasted awesome.  Since then I have made it a lot of times.  And as my son doesn’t like spinach this way he has it without any complaints. I have included onion and garlic though and you can skip it if you don’t like or don’t want to have them in your gravy.

Ingredients for gravy:

I made same type of gravy in kofta dish so just would copy it again here.

2 bunch of spinach washed and boiled (spinach reduces after boil)

1 onion cut in small pieces
1tbsp ginger garlic paste                                         

2 green chillies  cut in small pieces

1tomato cut in small pieces.

Salt to taste

1tsp garam masala powder

1tsp amchur powder

1tbsp oil or ghee

Method:

Boil spinach in vessel, drain out water and make a puree of it.  Keep it aside. In another pan put ghee or oil to heat. Put ginger garlic paste to sauté for a min, and then add onions, sauté it again till raw smell of onion goes. Add green chillies and tomato. Stir it for a min and add little water for tomatoes to cook. Bring to boil and then add salt, garam masala powder and amchur powder. Switch off the gas and put all this mixture of onion tomatoes in mixer and make puree of it.  Mix this with spinach puree and keep it aside.

Mix vegetables:

I have used cauliflower,potato, peas,carrots,and tomato here.  You can add paneer also later.

Take one cup of these mix vegetables and boil them with little salt. Take them off the heat, drain water and add the vegetables in the spinach gravy.

Your  vegetables with spinach gravy is ready and since I love butter I topped a bit of it for garnishing. Do let me know what you think of this.

 submitting this to:

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Kofta in spinach gravy

Hello! Welcome to my space again. Today's recipe koftas in spinach gravy was told to me by my sister-in-law.  My son never liked spinach and I had to coax him many times telling him you would become just like Popeye the sailor man and he would still refuse to eat spinach.

Since then I tried mix and match version and this recipe is result of those experiments.

But before I begin, since I use quantity as I see fit so the measurements I give below may not be accurate.  You are free to adjust them as you see it fit.

Ingredients:

For gravy:

2 bunch of spinach washed and boiled (spinach reduces after boil)

1 onion cut in small pieces
1tbsp ginger garlic paste                                         

2 green chillies  cut in small pieces

1tomato cut in small pieces.

Salt to taste

1tsp garam masala powder

1tsp amchur powder

1tbsp oil or ghee

Method:

Boil spinach in vessel, drain out water and make a puree of it.  Keep it aside. In another pan put ghee or oil to heat. Put ginger garlic paste to sauté for a min, and then add onions, sauté it again till raw smell of onion goes. Add green chillies and tomato. Stir it for a min and add little water for tomatoes to cook. Bring to boil and then add salt, garam masala powder and amchur powder. Switch off the gas and put all this mixture of onion tomatoes in mixer and make puree of it.   Mix this with spinach puree and keep it aside.

Koftas:

Ingredients:

4-5 potatoes boiled and peeled

½ cup bread crumbs or 4-5 bread pieces soaked in water and squeezed.

Salt to taste

1/2tsp amchur powder

1/2tsp coriander& cumin powder

1tsp red chili powder

1tsp garam masala powder

1/4cup coriander leaves cut

( you can add vegetables of your choice but here I kept plain)

Oil to deep fry

Method:

Mash potatoes and add all the items mentioned for kofta above.  Make small lemon sized balls of it and deep fry them.   Take them out of pan and keep on kitchen paper to soak extra oil

Before serving heat the spinach gravy for some time.  On a plate or bowl put spinach gravy first and add koftas.  If u add koftas before they would break.

For garnish I used a spoonful of butter.

End result came out as the picture below and my son happily ate his spinach.

I hope I was clear with instructions above and as a home maker  I use quantity as per my guesswork. So I am sure all you cooks would be able to make this as per your need.

Enjoy making this kofta dish and let me know how it turned out for you.

Submitting  this dish to:    
  Sizzling Tastebuds

  

Srav's Culinary concepts

Hema's Vantagadi

 

 

 

Sharing this with Minnie's  dinner extravaganza

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