Saanjh Savere is a signature recipe from the famous chef Mr. Sanjeev Kapoor. I was greatly inspired by this and tried to make the same with slight variations for ease of cooking. So let's try it -
Ingredients
- Spinach Leaves – ½ kg (cleaned and stems removed)
- Paneer (Cottage Cheese) – 200 gm (finely grated)
- Tomatoes - chopped 1 bowl
- Onion – chopped 1 bowl
- Gram flour (Besan) – 2 tablespoons
- Maize flour (makke ka aata) – 2 tablespoons
- Corn flour – 1 tablespoon
- Green chili – finely chopped – 1 teaspoon
- Ginger – finely grated – 1 tea spoon
- Garlic – finely chopped – 1 tea spoon
- Whole Garam Masala (2 Green Cardamom, 1 black cardamom, cinnamon sticks, bay leaves, 2 cloves)
- Cumin seeds (Jeera Whole) – 1 tea spoon
- Cream – ½ cup
- Dry fruits powder (Cashew powder, Almond powder, 1 tablespoon each)
- Turmeric powder – 1 teaspoon
- Red Chili powder – 1 teaspoon
- Garam masala powder – 1 teaspoon
- Cumin powder – 1 teaspoon
- Salt – 1 teaspoon
- Butter – 2 tablespoons
- Oil – for deep frying - ½ cup
- Milk – ½ cup
- Kasoori methi – 1 teaspoon
Method:
- Boil and strain spinach and keep aside to cool and drain away all water
- Make paste once it has cooled down. (Don’t add any water while making paste). It should be thick paste
- In an open pan - heat 1 tablespoon oil, add a pinch of whole jeera (Cumin seeds), 1 tablespoon chopped onion, ginger and garlic and saute for 2 minutes
- Add spinach leaves paste to it and roast it
- Add gram flour (besan) and maize flour – mix properly
- Add a pinch of jeera powder, garam masala powder, salt
- Keep mixing in the pan, till all the water from spinach paste has dried and it becomes a dough
- Take it out of the pan and keep it aside to cool down. Keep it covered with lid, so it doesn’t dry out
- Put the grated paneer in a separate bowl, add chopped ginger, garlic, coriander leaves, salt and 1 pinch of garam masala.
- Mix these together with band and make small balls
- Now take the spinach-flour dough and make it in shape of small bowls and fill with the paneer balls and close completely from all sides
- Do this for all the spinach-flour and paneer – should make around 10 stuffed balls with this quantity of ingredients
- In a deep fry pan, heat oil
- Roll the stuffed balls on corn flour and deep fry in the pan, till light brown
- Keep these fried spinach-paneer stuffed balls aside, while we prepare the gravy
For preparation of gravy
- In a shallow pan, heat oil add – chopped ginger, garlic, onions and whole garam masala and roast properly
- Add ½ cup milk and cover with lid for 5 minutes
- Remove from flame and keep aside to cool down.
- Once it’s cooled down, make a paste in mixer-grinder
- In a shallow pan, add 2 tablespoon butter, a pinch of whole jeera and add the paste we just prepared.
- Add turmeric, garam masala powder, red chilli powder, salt and mix the dry fruits powder and ½ cup water - cook for 5 minutes on low flame
- Add kasoori methi and mix properly and leave on low flame for 10 minutes. Once the gravy is cooked properly, add cream to it.
- Turn off the heating /flame and remove the pan from heat. The gravy is ready
Serving
- At the time of serving, take the fried spinach-paneer balls and cut each ball in two halves
- In a serving bowl -put the gravy and the half-cut spinach -paneer-balls.
- Garnish with cream and serve.
