“The easiest diet is, you know, eat vegetables, eat fresh food. Just a really sensible healthy diet like you read about all the time.”
Drew Carey
Baby Mustard Greens Indian Stir Fry … quick, as spicy as you like it, simple and fuss free. Fresh produce is one of the highlights of winter in North India, and mustard greens a quintessential favourite. Someone asked me the other day if I only bake, and I almost gawked! I cook more than I bake, or maybe equal amounts. I love to cook, and love trying new stuff. I just don’t blog it often enough.
So turning a corner near home yesterday, I chanced upon this young lad selling a cartload of farm fresh vegetables. The greens caught my glad eye and I hit the brakes. They weren’t the normal greens we see everyday. They were tiny, or rather baby, mustard greens … fresh, tender and absolutely delightful. All I could think of was ‘I wish I had my camera‘. The next best thing was of course to buy some, take it home and shoot! So I bought a bunch of stuff for a princely Rs100 {less than $2} and raced home in excitement.
North Indian winter is incomplete without a meal of sarson ka saag and makki ki roti. It’s a dish I make often through the winter, yet this year I haven’t got there for some silly reason. The upside of course that winter is longer and colder this year, so there’s plenty of promise of the dish showing up in the days to come. Since that is a more involved dish to make despite the several shortcuts I take, the Baby Mustard Greens Indian Stir Fry seemed a simpler option.
A quick consultation with Sangeeta who rules the roost for fresh produce and is a ‘food knowledge bank‘ in my eyes, and I knew what I would make. I cooked up a simple stir fry … loads of green chilies and loads of flavour, and served it up with one of my favourite non vegetarian dishes – a chicken korma. Kept the leaves whole for this since they were small and tender, yet you can always chop them up.
Also feel free to reduce {or increase } the green chilies. they add a nice touch of heat served alongside the mild and flavourful Awadhi Chicken Korma, which incidentally is one of our family favourites. That korma, shared here and seems to get better each time we make it! It’s simple and uncomplicated too, with staple pantry ingredients.
[print_this]Recipe: Baby Mustard Greens Indian Stir Fry
Summary:Baby Mustard Greens Indian Stir Fry … quick, as spicy as you like it, simple and fuss free. Fresh produce is one of the highlights of winter in North India, and mustard greens a quintessential favourite.
Prep Time: 15 minutes Total Time: 30 minutes Ingredients:
750g baby mustard greens, leaves picked
1 1/2 tbsp mustard oil
1 whole dried red chili
1/2 tsp asafoetida
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
3 green chillies, finely sliced
1 medium tomato, chopped
Salt to taste
Method:
Wash and spin the baby mustard leaves in a salad spinner to get rid of extra water. {You can chop the leaves f you like]
Heat oil in a wok, add the whole red chili when the oil reaches smoking point, and discard it once it blackens.
Add asafoetida, green chillies and tomato to oil and stir fry to mix.
Add all the leaves, reduce heat to simmer and cover and cook for 5-7 minutes until the leaves wilt.
Open, season with salt, stir to mix well, and simmer for another 10 minutes or so until the leaves are cooked.
Increase heat and stir fry until dryish. taste and adjust seasoning.
