Featured Chef: Rushmie Bakshi with a new way to cook up greens – “saag”

by | Oct 21, 2024 | Featured Chef, Newsroom

Why do I support local?

Because it reminds me of childhood and home!

When most people think of comfort foods they automatically go for things like mac and cheese, or chicken noodle soup. In an Indian household, we crave different dishes.

When my parents first immigrated in the 60’s to Canada, so many of the vegetables they were used to didn’t grow in North America, so they had to make do with what they could find. I remember lots of weekends with the mom in the kitchen, experimenting with ingredients to see if they could mimic something comparable to dishes they missed from home.  

Some things my dad would special order in bulk by the case, since we were the only customers who wanted them. (Thank goodness for the benefit of a deep freezer!) Other recipes were colossal failures, and those dishes they still have to wait to get home to Indian to enjoy.

One missing vegetable was mustard greens, so my mom figured out how to do it with broccoli instead, and even though I can get mustard now, I still add the broccoli

 Quite often, they turned veggies they found here, into remarkably decent versions of traditional dishes. One of these is saag.

 Saag is a combination of spinach and mustard greens cooked and blended into a puree.

~ Rushmie Bakshi, Chef & Culinary Education Director at Rural Resources Farm & Food Education Center

Saag

Served with naan, it makes a dish for ~ 4 adults 

In Punjab, saag is a winter dish, that used to be incredibly labour intensive without a blender or food processor. Ladies would spend hours chopping the greens as finely as they could, cooking them until they were super soft and then pureeing them in a giant mortar and pestal. My mom lucked out and got to do it in a blender, and then a food processor. I love my immersion blender, which requires less liquid and eliminates so much cleaning!

This Saag recipe is a bit different than the palak paneer you’ll find in most Indian restaurants today, but it’s an adaptation to cooking seasonally in North America, and it’s a dish that always takes me home to my mom’s kitchen.

  •  1 head of broccoli, (stems peeled), chopped,
  • 2 lbs fresh spinach leaves
  • 2 lbs mustard greens, chopped or torn rough (you can try other greens, like collards and kale)
  •  1/2 cup water

In a pot big enough to hold it all, place broccoli and all the greens. Pour over the water, cover, bring it to a boil, reduce to a simmer and let it steam for half an hour or until all the veggies are super soft. (Add more water if necessary to keep it from sticking to the bottom of the pot).

 Uncover the pot and continue cooking, watching carefully, until most of the water cooks off.
Puree using either an immersion blender or a food processor.

  •  1 stick of butter
  •  3 cloves garlic minced
  •  1 inch ginger roots peeled and finely chopped
  •  2 onions finely chopped
  •  1/2 cup tomato sauce
  •  1 1/2 teaspoons salt
  • 1 teaspoon ground cumin
  • 1 teaspoon corriander powder
  •  1 teaspoon garam masala
  • 1/2 teaspoon cayenne
    Melt butter in a frying pan. Saute onions until translucent then add garlic and ginger.  Cook for two minutes. Stir in tomato sauce. Stir in spices. Mix greens with the onions mix and heat together on low heat for an additional five minutes.
     Serve with naan bread. 

    pictures from chitchatchai blog, and stock images of farmers market greens

    Rushmie is the chef and culinary director at Rural Resources Farm & Food Education Center in Greeneville, a nonprofit farm and community green space and health hub, especially for youth. She teaches youth cooking and nutrition skills and introduces them to food from around the world. Youth, under Rush’s tutelage, often cater meals through Rural Resources for the community and for events. She is available for catering events in the community and at the Rural Resources facility.

    Visit www.ruralresources.net or visit www.facebook.com/ruralresources