Aloo Palak/Potatoes in Spinach gravy

After the success of palak paneer, I am more comfortable trying palak based dishes with the confidence that they can actually taste quite nice. Never made aloo palak before, neither have I tasted it elsewhere, I thought it would be a good match - aloo and palak and it was!. It makes a good side dish for roti as well as rice.  Whenever palak dishes become a hit at home, it makes me very happy because healthy delicious dishes are the way to go!  :)

Aloo Palak

Ingredients

Serves - 4
Spice Level - Moderately spicy and falvorful
Prep Time - 20 min
Cook time -  20 min

Potato - 2 large chopped into medium sized pieces
Palak - 1 bunch [ 250 - 300 gm]
Tomato - 2 Large [ chop one tomato into small pieces, cut the other tomato into two halves]
Cashews - 8
Onion - 1 Large finely shopped
Green chilli - 3
Chilli/Masala powder - 1 Tsp + 1 Tbsp
Mustard - 1 Tsp
Jeera - 1 Tsp
Garlic cloves - 4 large , chopped well
Oil - 1 Tbsp + 2 Tbsp + 1 Tbsp
Sugar - 1 Tsp
Salt - as per need

How do you do it

1. Firstly heat 2 Tbsp oil in a kadai , add the chopped potato pieces, a tsp salt and 1 Tbsp chilli/masala powder and saute till it has a slight golden color and is cooked well. Drizzle water in between to make the potatoes cook faster.Keep aside.

2. Wash and chop the palak leaves roughly [ remove stem]. Bring a cup of water to boil, add in palak leaves, cashews , a Tsp of sugar, green chillies and cut one tomato in half and drop it in. Let it boil for 3-5 minutes until the palak leaves are tender and tomato is blanched well. Remove from flame, drain the water but reserve it.Cool it for 10 minutes and blend all of it to form a puree along with reserved water. Keep aside.

3. Heat  1 Tbsp oil in a kadai, add chopped onion , saute till translucent. Add in the chopped tomato pieces and saute well until the tomatoes are soft. Add a tsp of salt and a pinch of turmeric for the tomatoes to cook faster. Add a tsp of chilli/masala powder and let it cook until the raw smell of the powder vanishes.Now add in the palak puree prepared in step 2 , remaining salt and bring to boil. Simmer flame, Add in the potato pieces from step 1 and let it boil slowly. Adjust consistency at this stage - add more water if needed if the gravy is too thick

4. Heat 1 Tbsp oil in another small pan, add mustard, jeera, let them roast. Add in the chopped garlic pieces and let it brown slightly. Pour this tempering on to the boiling palak curry , mix well and switch off flame.

Serve with soft and hot pulkas

Notes

1. Since the tempering in step 4 has garlic in it, the garlic flavour comes out well in the curry. If you prefer the garlic flavor to be very mild, I would suggest you add the garlic in step 3 while sauting along with onions.

2. Instead of sauteing potatoes, you may also just boil the potatoes with little salt and keep aside and later add to gravy in step 3.


3. Once palak is cooked it needs to be removed from the hot water to retain color, and adding 1/2 tsp sugar while cooking palak is also for the same reason.