Spinach is one of those greens that can be cooked quickly and makes an amazing side for rice. The Bengali style spinach stir fry is cooked in minimal spices and the frangrant of the five spice concoction, panch phoron makes this simple recipe amazing.
Some people add onions too, but I like to keep it mellow and just to give this stir fry a crunchiness I like to add fried boris. Boris are readily available at supermarkets, but I like to make my own. Living in Texas gives us ample sunlight to make sun dried boris, but you can also make boris in the oven, you can follow this recipe to make oven baked boris. I generally use urad dal to make boris, but any you can use other dal like masoor, moong, chola dal to make boris, and even ground rice.
Ingredients:
Bunch of spinach
2 medium potatoes, cut in to large squares
1 cup pumpkin cut in to squares
1 teaspoon panch phoron
1 teaspoon turmeric powder
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 tablespoon ginger paste
3 tablespoon mustard oil
2 – 3 green chilies
Salt to taste
8 -10 boris
Directions:
Heat 2 tablespoon of oil in a wok, add the pumpkin and potatoes and lightly stir to coat and fry for 3 – 4 minutes, take the vegetables out. Add the rest of the oil and fry the bori till they turn lightly brown and feels crunchy.
Add the panch phoron, as soon as the whole spices start to splutter transfer the vegetables back to the wok.
In a small bowl add 3 tablespoons of water and mix all the ground spices and ginger paste, mix and add it to the vegetables. Season with salt. Stir to coat the vegetables and fry for 3- 4 minutes till the raw spice smell goes away.
Pour in about a cup of water, add the green chilies, cover and cook for 5 – 7 minutes or till the vegetables are almost done. Add the spinach leaves to the vegetables and cover for 2 minutes, the leaves will wilt. Stir to mix well. Add the fried boris
Serve with warm white rice
Chef’s Tips: If you are using baby spinach leaves you don’t have to chop them, if using mature spinach cut them in halves, and chop the stems not more than 1″ in length.
Are either melon seeds available in the U.S.? It seems I need winter melon for pithé and boris.
Melon seeds are available at Indian stores its called charmagaz.