Mixing greens with meat

Rahul Verma

WHEN it comes to blessings, we tend to follow a somewhat boring narrative. ‘May you live a long and happy life’ is the central theme of most blessings. But I have thought of a more evocative message for a boon. ‘May you be surrounded by friends who cook,’ I say. I have been lucky in this regard — many of my friends don’t just love food, they are excellent cooks, too. Among them are the Farooquis, who send over food whenever they cook something interesting. And that, thankfully for us, is often!

A few days ago, for instance, they had a bowl of meat, cooked with baby turnip leaves, delivered to us. The meat was succulent, and the leaves gave it a delicious, mildly bitter taste that I loved. Since then, I have been thinking of more such recipes. This, after all, is the season for greens, and every vegetable vendor is selling all kinds of greens — from spinach and fenugreek to bathua and mustard. But, then, with the nip in the air, this is also the season when you want something meaty to bite into. So what do you do but rustle up a dish that mixes greens with meat.

I think I had my first taste of saag meat — spinach and goat meat — many decades ago at what was then a small dhaba and is now an upmarket restaurant on the outer circle of Connaught Place in New Delhi. I remember being completely floored by it: till then, I had savoured palak separately in many forms, and different preparations of meat curries. That was the first time I had the two together.

Since then, of course, I have eaten various kinds of chicken, lamb and pork dishes with greens. I used to prepare a green chicken dish with spinach leaves, coriander and mint, which used to come out rather well (I got the credit — but the hard work of separating the coriander leaves from the stems was done by my sister). There is a South Indian version of that, in which chicken is cooked with coriander leaves, mint and curry leaves. Curry leaves, surprisingly, are also used in Assamese food. A dear friend from Assam prepares noroxingho murgir mangxo (chicken with curry leaves) — for which very tender curry leaves are made into a paste and then the juice of the paste is squeezed out and added to the chicken dish.

“In Assamese cuisine, the paste of noroxingho leaves is used to prepare a flavourful curry with lentil dumplings and also with fish… Pork and country chicken curries are made with the paste, too,” writes Sangeeta Barooah Pisharoty in her new book, ‘The Assamese: A Portrait of a Community’.

Clearly, our regional cuisine has many recipes of different kinds of meat cooked with different kinds of tender greens. There were many reasons for this. One, the greens grew abundantly during and after the rain, and in winter. So, the leaves were used as bhaji, or to add texture and taste to other dishes. There was another good reason for the use of leaves in meat dishes. Leaves added not just flavour, but gave volume to the meat too. Just half a kilo of, say, mutton, cooked with ample amounts of spinach or fenugreek leaves, would be enough for a large family. The greens also added fibre to the meat, which many avid meat-eating communities needed for a healthier diet.

For me, the addition of greens is a way of enhancing the taste and flavour of a dish. I love methi gosht, and greatly enjoy the spicy and tart gongura meat of Andhra Pradesh, prepared with red sorrel leaves, as well as the very light dish of pork with spinach leaves that a good friend from Sikkim has fed us on many happy occasions.

That is why, when people say ‘Stay blessed’, I tell them, ‘Oh, I am blessed — I am surrounded by friends who love to cook!’

SHALGAM GOSHT

Ingredients

Goat meat 750 g

Small turnips with green leaves 500 g

Tomato one

Onions two

Ginger-garlic paste 1 tbsp

Turmeric powder 1 tsp

Coriander powder 1 tsp

Slit green chilies, according to taste

Mustard oil, as required

Salt to taste

Method

• Chop and blend the onions. Chop the tomato.
• Wash the meat. Wash and chop the turnips (including the leaves).
• Mix all the ingredients together with the oil and put them in a pressure cooker. After one whistle, open the lid and then fry the semi-done meat, along with the other ingredients.
• The turnip would have released a lot of water, so you have to keep frying on low heat till the meat is done, and the water has evaporated. This will take some time.
• Serve with rotis or paranthas.

(Recipe courtesy: Sehba Farooqui)