This is an absolute classic indian dish. Literally translated as spinach potatoes, it’s a great dish to make at pretty much any time of year. As with all Indian dishes there are as many ways of making sag aloo as there are people making it, this is the way we like to make ours. The key is to cook the onions until they are a rich caramel brown (but not burnt), this gives the whole dish a lovely rich depth.

Ingredients

  • 100ml Sunflower Oil
  • 1tsp Cumin Seeds
  • 1 Medium Onion blended to a fine paste
  • 400g (1 tin) of chopped tomatoes
  • 500g waxy potatoes pealed and cut into 1.5cm cubes
  • 200g Spinach washed and roughly chopped
  • 2tsp Ground Coriander
  • 1tsp Ground Cumin
  • 1.5 tsp Fine sea salt3 Cloves of garlic
  • 5cm Fresh ginger
  • 5 cm Fresh turmeric
  • 1tsp Garam masala
  • Fresh Coriander to garnish

Method

  1. Peel and blend the onion, we use a stick blender in a jug to do this, if you don’t have a blender just chop the onion as fine as you can.
  2. Heat the oil in a pan and once it is hot add the cumin seeds followed by the onion puree. Reduce the heat and cover the pan with a lid, you will need to keep an eye on these onions and stir every couple of minutes to makes sure they don’t burn, but it will take 10-20 minutes for them to completely caramelize.
  3. While the onions are cooking, peel and chop the potatoes and wash the spinach.
  4. Now is also a good time to peel and blend the fresh turmeric, ginger and garlic. You can use a pestle and mortar or a small blender or just chop as fine as you can. This mixture is called the “masala” .
  5. Once the onions are ready add the chopped tomatoes and potatoes and enough boiling water to just cover them and let them simmer for 8 minutes.
  6. Now add the fresh ground masala paste to the potatoes along with the ground coriander, cumin and salt. Stir well, cover and cook until the potatoes are just about cooked.
  7. Now add the chopped spinach and garam masala powder, stir well, cover and leave for 15 minutes for the flavours to infuse.
  8. When you are ready to serve reheat it and garnish with fresh coriander.
    This goes perfectly with our red lentil dahl.