Palonger torkari (Spinach with Mixed Vegetables)

It's a pity I've never found a recipe of this online. It's too 'shadharon', I suppose, for our cook certainly thinks so. Far too ordinary to be talked about. But that's precisely why I love it, and recommend it heartily. It's such an easy curry, so healthy, and just so relaxing with steaming white rice after ahard day's work. I just had to put this up.

What you need:

Pumpkin.

Potatoes.

Brinjal/eggplant/aubergine.

Sheem (substitute with green or French beans)

Palong/palak/spinach.

Paach phoron

How to:

This is the bowl of vegetables Shobhadi (our cook) prepared. She likes large slices, but this will simply not do. This curry is cooked briefly in its own steam, and chunks this big will remain raw. Or inedibly undercooked. So make sure no vegetable (apart from the spinach) is larger than a cm across.

Core the seeds and soft centre of the pumpkin, and then slice the outer green/orange skin off so it takes about half a centimeter of pumpkin flesh with it. Dice. Peel and chop the potatoes. Slice the brinjals and sheem. Thoroughly wash bunches of spinach, roll it, and slice through the lenth. Then go back and halve each slice.

Pumpkins and potatoes as *I* sliced them down.

Cutting the sheem (which Shobhadi had left whole)

Paanch phoron

Close-up, just 'cause.

Now, in two teaspoons of warm sunflower/canola oil or ghee, toss in 1.5 teaspoons of paanch phoron. Turn down flame before you do, otherwise the phoron will char. Slowly turn up flame while stirring, and when you can smell the sweet smell of toasted saunf, throw in the vegetables minus the spinach. Mix well.

Add the spinach. Fold it in really well on high. Add salt and sugar. Mix again. Now, cover, simmer, and let cook for about fifteen or twenty minutes. The spinach will release enough water to cook all the vegetables. I have pictures to prove it.

Salt and sugar

 

 The spinach-water

I don't have end-shots because my camera ran out of battery. But just cover and cook from here onwards, till the vegetables are all done. Then eat :-)