Befriending Sarson da Saag

Unfriend -- a new word though trust Blogger to still thinks otherwise. Heard it on NPR day before and I was surprised, so "unfriending" was not a word all these days. How else could you explain the ebbing away of the people you once knew ? It is true I have not really "unfriended" people formally for ages. People just flow in and out of my life, some without even a formal good bye, they move away, I lose interest and one fine morning I ask D, "You remember T, she used to make such lovely shorshe chingri, heard they moved to a new home, its been years that we have talked to them". I don't make an effort to befriend T again, I have moved away, even if I call there won't be much to talk about so I don't. But I haven't "unfriended" her, if I ever refer to her shorshe salmon to new acquaintances I still say "I had a friend T".

My daughter and my neighbor's daughter "unfriend" each other almost every day. Every afternoon I hear "N says she is not my friend any more". There is hurt in that voice, the pain of rejection.Before, that pain used to hurt me, I used to reassure her "It is ok, you can make other friends". Now I know to ignore, almost every evening they get together and play again. I am not sure how the "befriending" happens, they don't lock their thumbs, they don't do anything, they just become friends.

This post reminded me of my childhood, those days of "aari" and "bhaab". The little girls holding up their cute pinkies and declaring a somber "katti". An hour or so of not talking to each other, not making eye contacts and then everything forgotten as thumbs were locked into "bhaab". If things were really rough, there was even a poem, a very humiliating one, to end it all.

Aaari, aari, aari
Kal jabo Bari (Tomorrow I shall go home)
Porshu jabo Ghor (The day after I shall be with my family)
Hanuman er lyaj dhore tana tani kor (Meanwhile you while away your time pulling a monkeys tail)

That is how we did it then, formally with decorum.

How do you "unfriend" for that matter, now that you have been reminded you can ? Do you just bump people off your contact list and send them a "unfriendly" message ? Soon will you also "unfollow" on Twitter ?

I befriended "Sarson Saag" very recently.


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Strange as it may sound, I never had it back in India. The famous Makki di Roti and Sarson di Saag never enticed me enough. Recently Baby A's nanny, M Didi, suggested that we get "shorshe shaak" or mustard greens and she would cook it for us. We never saw Mustard Green at the Indian Grocer's and then one day she pointed out to broccoli rabe at the Farmers Market and declared it to be "shorshe shaak". So that is how Broccoli rabe was re-christened as sarson saag at our home and later as I learned in many Indian homes across USA.

Her preparation of the greens were ok, nothing to be talked home about. And then one of my colleagues who is a Punju shared his lunch of sarson di saag with me. The greens were delightful, creamy and delicious. A call to his wife later, I got the following recipe. I have tried it only once since and have not measured the ingredients, follow your instinct and you will do fine.

Sarson Ka Saag

Wash the greens well.

Cook in pressure cooker one part broccoli rabbe (or mustard greens) with 2 part spinach, a little salt and a couple of green chilis for 15-20 minutes

Take the greens out, add a little chickpea flour to them and make a smooth pulp or kind of paste out of them. I did a coarse puree but technically you are not supposed to use any electronic gadget.

Heat Oil in a saute pan/Kadhai

Add minced garlic or garlic paste

Add a good amount of finely chopped onion and fry till onion turns reddish brown

Add a little turmeric, red chili powder, and pureed tomato

Fry till you see oil seeping out from the masala

Add the greens, salt to taste and cook till there is a little oil coming out from the side of the greens

Serve with butter or a dollop of yogurt as I did

Enjoy with Makki di Roti, Chapati, whole wheat bread or just by itself

Note: I felt some paneer in that saag would have been just wonderful


Trivia: In north India and Pakistan sarson is more intimately entwined with village life. Sarson is a surprisingly resilient plant that resists infestation and is not easily affected by adverse weather. It is, therefore, eminently suitable to an unsophisticated rural economy. Wide fields of blooming yellow mustard, the sarson ki khet is a popular shoot location for Bollywood romances.

Roasted Winter Vegetable Soup -- spiced up

"Any distinction, exclusion or restriction made on the basis of sex which has the effect or purpose of impairing or nullifying the recognition, enjoyment or exercise by women, irrespective of their marital status, on a basis of equality of men and women, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural, civil or any other field."

Who in the frickin blue blistering barnacles drafted this thing ? It is so dang complicated, I don't even have something concrete to base my argument upon.
Who brought on this topic about gender equality and equal opportunity ?

Yeah, please Sir/Ma'm,  I want some amendments.

All that equal opportunity has done for me is to make me work outside the home, inside the home, in the periphery of home and everywhere foreseeable. I have been given enough opportunity to work. Thank you.

Now I want the finer points ironed out. Like who gets the opportunity to fold the laundry or say pack lunch or plan dinner every night ? Whose fundamental freedom is it to watch Hulu while the kids are being taken care of ? Who gets the opportunity to be depressed when the baby says "Mummy four o clock e asbe" every single day ? Who has the exclusive rights to check and sign homework every night ? Who gets the "once in a lifetime" opportunity  to research & pick the nearest, cheapest Taekwondo center/Gymboree/Swim Class/some class in town ?

If in simple English, maybe bullet points, someone could take care of these, and in printed letters put it to UN or where ever you do such stuff, I would be ever obliged.

Ok, I am having had a bad day, so what ?

* The UN has intervened since this was drafted (on Monday) and some sort of a treaty has been reached but I want a signed official document.

Fall is practically Winter to my tropical soul, the kind of Winters I like, mild, pleasant with the sun on your back, and cold enough to bring out the woolens. But it getting colder and windier and a sweater is not enough.

Everyday that my Dad calls he asks, whether we need a jacket outside. "Yes, we do", BS says. My Dad sighs and grumbles about how difficult the cold must be for the kids. They don't mind all that much, except for the winter jacket. Yeah they don't like winter jackets and we are not yet discussing mittens and scarves.

A bowl of warm soup with the colorful winter vegetables warms up the heart though. It is a perfect way to welcome the cold.With some bread brushed with olive oil this made a lovely Sunday night dinner, a calm end to an otherwise hectic weekend. BS loved it and had two small bowls, though LS insisted that "Ami soup khai na"(I don't drink soup).

I don't know where or how I came up with this soup. It all started off with the lone sweet potato and then I was inspired by my previous Moroccan Lentil Soup.


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Serves 4, measurements are eyeballed

Roasted Winter Vegetable Soup

Peel and roughly chop 1 sweet potato, 1 small-ish beet root and half of an yellow squash, ok any squash, ok, ok no squash

Toss with olive oil, salt and pepper.

Arrange flat on a baking tray and bake at 400F for 30 minutes till you see the veggies shrivel a little.. These are my small toaster oven settings

Heat Olive Oil in a deep stock pot

Add half a cup of chopped onion. Saute till onions are soft and translucent.

Add 2 tsp of fresh ginger-garlic paste and fry for half a minute. Add one small peeled tomato along with some juice. I used canned else chop one small.

Add 1/2 cup of chopped baby carrots(or regular). Cook till carrots are soft.

Add the roasted vegetables. Wash and add about 1/3 cup of Red lentils

In a skillet dry roast 1-2 tsp of cumin and then grind to a fine powder. I usually do a whole batch of this and store it in an air tight jar. Add 1 heaped tsp of roasted cumin powder and 1/2 tsp of dry ginger powder to the stock pot. Add a dash of adobo chile powder(optional). Ok, honestly you do not need adobo chile powder. What does adobo have to do with this soup anyway. It is just that I have a bottle of it and wanted to use it 'coz it sounds nice. No pressure.
Give everything a good stir and saute for a minute or two.

Add enough water and salt to taste.Cover and cook till lentils and vegetables are done. Squeeze a little lime juice and adjust seasonings to taste.

Puree with an immersion blender. Season with fresh ground black pepper.

Serve with some crusty bread or enjoy a warm bowl by itself.

More Heart Warming Soups:

Oven Roasted Tomato Soup

Healthy Moong Bean Soup

Thai Vegetable Soup

Salsa Soup

Moroccan Lentil and Carrot soup

Rosogollar Payesh -- the shortest cut

If you have known me for the last four years of my blogging, you must have realized by now that I am not-really "a-from-scratch" kind of person and take shortcuts if there is one. I mean I will not take a detour and heat frozen dinners when I cook for the kids or when I try to pack a healthy lunch or put dinner on the table but I will take a jump over the stream if there is one.

Like I mostly buy organic baby carrots instead of the regular sized ones which demands peeling and then chopping. I tend towards buying canned beans instead of the dry which needs pre-soaking. I will invariably lean to buy a box of clean baby spinach instead of the fresh green large leafed bunch. I will tend to over sleep and avoid the "what to have for Saturday b'fast" routine.

Ok, as I write, it dawns on me that the above points more towards me being lazy than anything else. So we won't discuss it any more. Period.

But I must admit that blogging has improved me a lot and I now no longer use off the shelf masala except for Pav Bhaji Masala, Deggi Mirch, Kashmiri Mirch, Kitchen king, Amchoor,...., ok that is getting long. But hey, I am not buying Garam Masala and making Biryani Masala from scratch. That counts.

And what about Ghee ? Come on, I make Ghee. So what if it is from sticks of store bought butter and made only quarterly and everyone except the baby is shunned from eating it to make it last longer.

I also try to bake totally from scratch now, with flour and eggs and frozen butter which never ever is at room temperature. Sometimes I just want to take a box of Betty Crocker and bake one of those totally delicious cakes with minimum effort and say "Ta-da". The family actually loved those more than what I spawn out now and I know they would be eternally grateful if I went back to Betty. But I have a blog where such stuff is looked down upon and I need to live up or down to it.

But even I have to draw a line somewhere.

And you all know that I am "oh so busy" .That I don't even have time to gulp my tea back from work. Yeah, tea is important, much more than ghee.That I volunteer as a chauffeur 3 nights a week and then a tutor , a washing lady, a very uninterested game player, a lousy story teller, a cook and odd job doer.

Those are fun jobs and I am really glad I have them. So as long as I have them, I am not buying me a cow, milking it, making paneer out of it and making my own rasgulla. No siree, no rosogolla from scratch. One fine day I might or not, we shall see. Honestly, even without any of those extra jobs I doubt my finesse and expertise in making things like rasgulla. So I will just open a can of syrupy rasgullas and make a Rosogollar Payesh as I have always done.

This I made not for Diwali but for Bhai Phota or Bhai Duj which comes two days after. My little girls have littler brothers to give phota and we try to celebrate this occasion every year. Not that the little ones are interested in such Rosgollar payesh, they would rather have cake or a lollipop as is the case for LS.

But Bengalis have a tradition of making Payesh on important occasions, kind of like Turkey on Thanksgiving.Only for Bongs, the occasion arises 1 x n times every year. Do I thank my stars that the Bong fore fathers chose Payesh and not Turkey...pheww.

This Rosogollar Payesh is one easy dessert to make and can be made couple of days ahead. It is best when served chilled and also thickens when a day old, a fact I adore.


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Rosogollar Payesh

In a deep thick bottomed pan add
1 can of evaporated milk
2-2&1/2 can of Whole Milk(use same can as Evaporated milk to measure)

Bring the above to a boil. Be careful so that it doesn't spill over.

Now add 1/2 can of Sweetened Condensed Milk to above and mix well. You can use sugar instead of C. Milk. Also depending on your sweet tooth, increase/decrease amount of C. Milk.

Add some ground cardamom.

Keep stirring at medium heat for 30-35 minutes till the milk thickens. You need to stir frequently or the milk tends to scald the bottom of the pan.

When the milk is at a consistency where it is pourable but thicker than what you started with, add a few drops of rose water and a generous pinch of saffron. Give a stir and switch off heat.

Meanwhile open a can of rasgulla/rosogolla. I had KC Das, you can use Haldiram or any good brand. Pick a rosgolla from the can using a spoon or your thumb and forefinger, give it a light squeeze to get little of the syrup out. In a serving bowl, arrange the rasgulla/rosgolla. I had about 15-18 rasgullas. Pour the warm thickened milk over the rasgullas so that the balls are soaked in milky goodness.Note: If your rasgullas are super sized, halve them, it is best to get a can of standard sized rasgullas though.

Alternately add the rasgulla/roshogolla to the pan of milk and simmer for about 30secs to a minute. This makes the rasgulla softer even with less time for soaking.

For a non-messy tip of squeezing rasgulla check Nupur's version of Rasmalai.

Chill and serve.