Aloo palak is a homely everyday curry made with fresh seasonal spinach and good old potatos. Aloo palak goes best with soft and fluffy phulkas!
Today at Everyday Indian, I bring to you a very nutritious main course dish which is aloo palak that is accompanied best with hot fluffy phulkas. Aloo palak is a vegetable side dish with spinach leaves and potatoes which are sautéed with spices to a dry consistency. Palak i.e. spinach is an extremely nutritious leafy vegetable which is popular across the globe. It is my favorite kind of leaf too and I look for opportunities to add this wonder leaf to a dish wherever possible. Palak is great with pastas too! You can check my creamy chicken and spinach pasta and you will know why!
Back to aloo palak. Today we are talking about the homely curry which is served on regular meals at Indian households with rotis or parathas. It is spiced with the flavorful Indian spices like turmeric, cumin, coriander and red chili powder. The aromatics i.e. ginger & garlic, sautéed at the very beginning lend it the characteristic Indian aroma and makes us Indians hungry instantly, don’t you agree?
I started this second space with Everyday Indian because here I want to share the regular dishes which we eat on typical days. I used to feel that there is nothing special about them that I should share it on my blog; but I realized that these are the integral part of our meals as well as our very own Indian cuisine and without homely recipes like this my culinary world will never be complete. It’s true that I cook special dishes not only because I run the blog, but also because I love to cook and experiment with new dishes and even if I don’t have this blog tomorrow, I would still keep my experiments alive in my kitchen because that’s how I roll. That’s when I realized that these special dishes need a dedicated space of their own and hence this new blog!
I have started the journey of my new blog with very simple dishes and will expand with time to include as many dishes as possible so that this blog becomes your one-stop-shop for all authentic Indian recipes. If you are Indian and have just started to learn cooking, heartiest welcome to you. Here you will learn all such dishes which any Indian will love at any given day. At the same time if you are new to Indian food, then this blog has a lot to offer you. You will find simple everyday recipes which our mothers used to cook and we are continuing the legacy with passion. Today’s recipe of aloo palak is a part of that legacy and will win everyone out there undoubtedly. Try this nutritious aloo palak and do get back to me to let me know how did you like it! I am waiting!
- Aloo/potato – 3, medium, boiled and cubed into 1 inch pieces
- Fresh palak/spinach – 6-8 cups, roughly chopped
- Onion – 1, large, finely chopped
- Ginger – 1 inch piece
- Green chili – 2
- Garlic paste – 1 tsp
- Vegetable/mustard oil – 2 tbsp
- Cumin seeds – ½ tsp
- Dry red chili – 2
- Hing/asafetida – ¼ tsp
- Tomato puree – ½ cup
- Sugar – ½ tsp
- Turmeric powder – ½ tsp
- Cumin/jeera powder – ½ tsp
- Coriander/dhaniya powder – ½ tsp
- Kashmiri red chili powder – 1 tsp
- Green peas – 1 cup [I used frozen. If you are using fresh, then boil them before adding to the curry.]
- Salt to taste
- Make a smooth paste of the ginger and green chilies. Set it aside.
- Wash the spinach thoroughly and rouchly chop them.
- Heat the oil in a wok. Once the oil is hot, temper it with cumin seeds and the dry red chilies. Add a pinch of hing/asafetida and give a quick stir. Let the cumin seeds sauté for few seconds.
- Then add the chopped onion and sauté them for 5 minutes on medium until translucent.
- Next add the ginger-chili paste and garlic paste. Keep sautéing the aromatics for 5 more minutes on medium heat.
- Next add the tomato puree & sugar and cook them until the raw smell of tomatoes are gone, about 5 more minutes.
- Now add the powdered spices – turmeric, cumin, coriander and red chili. Add a splash of water and cook the spices for couple of minutes on medium-high flame.
- Next add the roughly chopped palak/spinach leaves and stir to mix them well with the spices. Cook the spinach for 2-3 minutes. Spinach will ooze out a lot of water and reduce in quantity significantly. This is normal.
- Finally add the boiled and cubed potatoes and green peas. Stir everything really well so that the vegetables are coated with the spices all over. Season the curry with salt to taste and mix well. [Reason I added salt late is that the spinach reduces so much in amount, it’s difficult to guess the right amount of salt in the beginning.]
- Add little water if the curry seems to be too thick or if it sticks to the bottom of the pan. Mix everything well and boil off if there is excess water.
- Remove from flame and serve the hot aloo palak with freshly made phulkas! Enjoy!
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