Restaurant Style Saag Aloo courtesy of Jagruti’s Cooking Odyssey

Known in most curry houses in the UK as a classic vegetable vegan side dish, Saag Aloo remains a firm favourite. Two quite ordinary ingredients, spinach and potatoes are married together with a blend of fragrant spices to create something delicious!

To find out what Hayley thought of our copper tri ply pans and lots of tips to help create this Restaurant Style Saag Aloo click here. 

Recipe by Hayley Dhanecha

Serves: 4-6

Preparation Time: 5 minutes

Cooking Time: 25 minutes

Equipment

• Stockpot or 20cm Saucepan
• Saute Pan
• Mini Pan for serving

Ingredients

• 1kg fresh spinach
• 500g baby potatoes
• 5 TBSP oil
• 1 TBSP panch phoran
• 1 TBSP whole spices (green cardamom, bay leaf, cinnamon)
• 1 big  finely chopped onion
• 2 TSP. ginger-garlic puree 
• 1 TBSP kasoori methi (dried fenugreek leaves)
• 1 TSP turmeric powder
• 1 TSP garam masala
• 1 TBSP kashmiri red chilli powder
• 5-6 TBSP blended tinned tomatoes*
• 2 big fresh tomato roughly chopped into big chunks
• 1 TSP lemon or lime juice
• 1 TSP sugar
• Salt to taste

Cooking Method

1. In a large pot add water, salt, and little turmeric powder. 
2. Add potatoes and cook it till 70% done.
3. Remove it and let it cool a little, peel the skin and leave it aside. 
4. Discard the water, rinse the pan and add more water to it.
5. Add a pinch of sugar and bring it to boil, add spinach.
6. Blanch the spinach for a couple of minutes. 
7. Remove the spinach and add it to the ice-cold water. 
8. Squeeze out all the water and keep the spinach aside. 
9. In a saute pan, heat oil.
10. Add whole spices and panch phoran.
11. Once they crackle add chopped onion.
12. Saute the onion till it’s translucent.
13. Add the ginger-garlic paste and keep cooking and stirring the mixture. 
14. Now add kasoori methi, and ground masala (turmeric, red chilli powder and garam masala) along with salt. 
15. If masala sticks to the pan, add a couple of spoons of water.
16. Add blended tomatoes and keep cooking the mixture.
17. Turn the heat to high and keep stirring the mixture, until you see oil separating the pan.  
18. Add squeezed spinach and parboiled potatoes, mix everything but make sure not to break the potatoes. 
19. Sprinkle some water and let the curry cook. 
20. Turn the heat to medium and add fresh tomatoes.
21. Let the curry cook for another 3-4 minutes, add lemon juice and mix well.
22. Sprinkle some water to prevent sticking the curry to the pan.
23. Cook another 4-5 minutes on high heat.
24. Add sugar, mix and turn off the heat.
25. Serve hot.

NOTES:

If you are using a concentrated tomato puree instead of tinned tomatoes, use ONLY 2 TBSP and add 5 TBSP water to it.