Making the most of Malabar spinach

This preparation of Malabar Spinach for Palak Paneer works just as well for any of the sub-tropical plants discussed in Spinach galore. You can pick the individual leaves from the plant, but I generally just use the garden shears or secateurs to cut off a large section of the plant and separate the leaves from the plant on my outdoor table.

I then wash the individual leaves in cold water in the sink, picking off any flowers from the spinach plants, stray plant matter that has got caught up in the vine, and any caterpillars, spiders and other pests sheltering in the lush growth. I just pick up and turn the mass of leaves over, pulling out anything that I don’t want to eat and then draining it, while I continue working through it, to allow the water to run off.

In one saucepan I fry up onions, mushrooms and spices as a base of flavouring for the spinach stew. I generally include Hing (asafoetida, a natural flavouring from the Ferula plant) which gives a strong umami based to the stew and brown spices (nutmeg, cinnamon, pepper, cloves). When the onions are transparent and the saucepan still hot, I add a good dose of vinegar (usually brown, apple cider, kambucha, or balsamic) which causes the base to soften into a “jel”. While that is cooking, I also fry up the potatoes, paneer, and/or tofu with their own spice mix as a complement to the warm umami “brown” flavours of the spinach stew.

I then add a splash of water to the onion jel, and stir in the spinach, filling up the saucepan and popping a lid on so the spinach is steamed and collapses. Every couple of minutes I turn over the mass of spinach, bringing up the totally collapsed leaves and moving the fresher leaves closer to the heat. After five to ten minutes, the saucepan full of spinach will have collapsed to a fraction of the size and the saucepan can be topped up with fresh leaves. Once all the spinach is collapsed and stirred into the onion mix I run it through a blender, food processor, or pulp it with a stick blender. I turn down the heat and allow the finely blended spinach stew to form an even consistency, blending and adding water as necessary to achieve an edible mix.

Once I am happy that the stew is stable and of an edible consistency, I stir in the potatoes, mushrooms, tofu or paneer, and turn off the heat. The stew is ready to eat and can be popped into the fridge or freezer for later use. I often use it as an accompaniment to yellow daal, meat stews and rice. It is quite rich and has a strong presence that means some people find it a bit much on its own.