“My grandmother made sarson ka saag ,” says Inderpreet Kaur. “When I say she made it, she sat on a charpai out in the winter sun, picking the leaves, discarding weeds, shaking out the mud and then handing it over to the daughters-in-law to wash, cut and cook. Where will I find daughters-in-law to do that now?” Kaur laughs, as she says the stalk has to be peeled to get to the tender inside that is used. “My grandmother had a sharp knife with which she chopped them finely. Now, of course, we get them pre-cut in the markets, but it is not the same,” she says.
Makki ki roti and sarson ka saag is no longer such a regular in Kaur’s menu as it is difficult to digest. It worked for those who did hard physical labour like the farmers, she says. Indeed, whenever I think of makki ki roti and sarson ka saag , I think of farmers working in the fields and their wives/girlfriends simpering up to them at meal time with the rotis wrapped up in cloth. And of course, DDLJ . But the first time I tasted it was in Leh. It was tinned sarson ka saag served with abominably-made rotis , which the mess cooks claimed was prepared with makkai , but I seriously doubt it.
Sarson ka saag and makki ki roti is winter fare. Consultant Chef Sweety Singh says, “November, December and January are the months when the saag is available in plenty. And nothing can beat the taste and nutrition of seasonal greens.” Chef Singh loves his sarson ka saag and declares that no one makes it like his mother (of course!). “This is mother-food. It is the enormous love she pours into it that gives it the taste.” Other than that, of course, Chef Singh says the taste may differ, depending on the water used to cook it, and other greens such as spinach or bathua leaves that are added to the mustard leaves to give it more body. He is very, very irritated about the cashew paste and cream that is added to every Punjabi gravy, including this one. “Traditional Punjabi cooking never used cream and cashew. Good ghee and butter, yes. Cashew and cream, no.” In season, Chef Singh says he makes sarson ka saag and roti as many as four times a week.
Even all these years have not diminished the memory of the sharp smell of the saag in Nanhi Mann’s childhood Ambala home. “Big bundles of saag arrived regularly in the kitchen. “There was no pressure-cooking involved. It was prepared in a big pateela (vessel). Cooking it is not for the weak-hearted,” warns Mann, whose naani continued to make the saag even in Canada, she says. “A portable stove was set up in the garage, where she would spend hours on end, wielding the ladle on the greens. It was never cooked inside the house, as the smell would linger forever.” Mann is amazed when I ask her where her naani got the greens in Canada. “You even get Parle G biscuits there!” she exclaims.
Kaur has cousins living abroad who get it cooked and frozen by their mothers to carry with them. My Punjabi friends warn me that it is no good writing about the iconic combination without mentioning the healthy helpings of ghee and butter that go into the dish. The roti is always slathered with ghee . And the makkai flour with ajwain (carom seeds) is kept in a large paraat and small portions of it, kneaded into a dough with warm water. The dough can’t all be made at one go. Then, the roti is patted into shape directly on the griddle with one’s bare hands and served hot with a blob of homemade butter, some jaggery and perhaps a salad of radishes or onions. The butter, ghee and jaggery, my friends assure me, are a must to help with the digestion. So those with a frail digestive system should take note.
As I request Kaur for a recipe, she also tells me, “As a kid, I thought my mother had magic fingers. She flattened the difficult makki atta on her palm and the hot griddle so easily and churned out one roti after another, even as we sat down around her and eagerly waited. The roti had uneven edges, but we didn’t mind.”
