Friday, February 8, 2013

Aloo Palak | Lunch Box Series

Lunch box normally comprises 3 rotis and a side dish and a box of curd rice. Side dish is a dal with veggies or some fried sprouts or a vegetables cooked with a gravy. Last week, i decided to take a short cut and cook palak with aloo. Adding potato to anything makes it instantly tasty! Its not really great for the stomach, but once in a way chaltaa hai :)
One more advantage of making a potato dish is that it cooks really easily and all the flavors are absorbed really well into it.
So here goes a really easy side dish for the lunch box. I decided to put together the lunch dabba dishes under the tag,  Lunch Box Series.

Preparation Time: 15 Minutes
Cooking Times:    10 Minutes

Ingredients:

3 large potatoes, cut into large pieces
2 bunches of palak, washed and clean
1 small onion cut into thin slices
1 tbsp Oil
1 tsp Jeera
1 tsp mustard seeds
A pinch of hing
1 tsp chopped ginger
1 tsp chopped garlic
1/2 tsp cumin powder
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
1 tsp coriander powder
1 tsp of red chilli powder
Salt to taste
Chat Masala to taste (optional)
1 tsp Lemon Juice (optional)

Method:

Place the chopped potatoes in a pressure cooker, with some salt and water and pressure cook until one whistle. While that is cooking, chop the greens and onions. In a pan, add the oil. Once it heats up, add mustard, jeera, turmeric powder and hing.




Once the jeera starts browning, add to it the sliced onions, garlic and ginger.




Once the onion turns pink, add to this the chopped spinach. Fry it until it just about wilts. Now add to this the cumin powder, coriander powder, salt and chilli powder.



Stir for 2-3 minutes. It doesn't need to be cooked for too long. All you need to do now is to add the cooked potatoes to this mixture!



Mix gently depending on how much your potatoes have cooked. Make sure that the palak leaves are not bunched up together but are mixed well with the potatoes. Sprinkle some water to this and cover and let it cook for 2-3 minutes. This will ensure that the masala that is in the palak will stick to the potatoes.
Turn off the heat. Add some lemon juice or chat masala on top as per your taste. Serve hot with rotis.


Carry it in your dabba, heat it up just before eating and enjoy hot aloo with rotis. 

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