An Indian curry, this spicy spinach dish is incredibly flavourful and instructive to make. Find out how they stack spices in Indian to arrive at this amazing spinach recipe. Do something different for once with that big bag of fresh spinach with make this curry!
Spicy spinach curry in six steps
This fantastic recipe I got from one of his favourite food-vloggers is Pro Home Cooks. I regularly try one of his recipes (watch and follow tip if you like cooking!). A great success was this spicy spinach curry and I have been making it regularly ever since. I can imagine that when you think of an Indian curry dish you think: ‘whew, that must be a lot of work‘. But it really isn't that much. Many Indian dishes are constructed in the same way. The same spices are used a lot, like in this recipe: garam masala, ginger, garlic, cumin seeds and fenugreek. Once you get the hang of it, Indian cuisine is not that complicated at all.
Another secret: cooking with whole spices. This will immediately take a dish to a higher level. It is easy to freeze whole herbs. That way you don't waste anything and you never miss a thing. Find more spice tips here.
Sustainable tip: Spinach is in season in the Netherlands from but until November. Fresh Dutch spinach is a great choice in those months. If you want to eat spinach out of season, spinach from Europe, for example from Spain, is the best choice, because there it is still fresh from the land.
Spicy spinach curry: This fine cast iron pan can be found here. In the main photo, you can see that I added split peas. This takes extra time, but is not necessarily tastier in my opinion. So I would prepare it without the peas (photo 2) in the way I wrote it down below.
Spicy spinach curry Indian style
Kitchenware
- blender/ hand blender/ food processor(I use a coffee bean grinder.)
- cutting board
- knife
- spatula
Ingredients
- 1 bag fresh spinach 600 gr
- 1 fluorescent garam masala
- 2 onions shredded
- 6 toes garlic
- 1 thumb ginger
- ½ fluorescent fenugreek whole seeds
- 1 fluorescent cumin seeds whole seeds
- 1 el tomato paste
- 1 cup (vegan) broth
- 2 el sunflower oil or ghee
- ½ chilli shredded
- 1 tin coconut milk
- fresh coriander or flat parsley sliced
Instructions
Making your own garlic and ginger paste
- Put the garlic and ginger in a blender or hand blender and puree into a paste.
'Tempering' the whole spices
- Indian food almost always starts with seasoning the oil in the pan. Heat the oil (or ghee) in the pan over high heat and add the whole spices (optionally a chilli). Trick: Add a few whole mustard seeds, once they ‘pop’ you know step 2 is done.
The aromatics
- Add the onions to the pan and cook until golden brown. Now add the garlic-ginger paste and fry for another minute and keep stirring (be careful: the paste burns quickly). Finally, add the tomato paste and stir briefly.
Making stock
- Add half a cup of broth and stir into the sauce, let the sauce thicken slightly. Add the garam masala
Add spinach
- Add a good handful of spinach to the pan and start stirring. Once it has shrunk enough, keep repeating this step until all the spinach is in the pan. Use splashes of stock to shrink the spinach faster if the pan gets too dry.
Simmer
- On low heat, let the spinach simmer nicely (at least 45 minutes) and keep tasting the curry. Not up to taste? Use garam masala spices to season the curry. Too spicy? Use some coconut milk to make the dish milder.
- Garnish the spicy spinach curry on a plate with some coriander or flat leaf parsley. Delicious with rice or naan bread. Enjoy!
More recipes thegreenlist.nl
- Making your own flatbread to go with your curry? Good idea! Check out the recipe!
- Curry lover? Then check out this red lentil curry!
- Need inspiration for your broccoli? Check out this delicious stir-fry recipe!
Photo credits: thegreenlist.nl.
