Palak ka Kaapa (Spinach Saag)

Palak ka Kaapa

Friday evenings are usually lazy for me. So today also I wanted to cook something quick and healthy so decided to cook something with spinach. The first thing which came to my mind was Kaapa which I wanted to make since some time but could not. A little background about this dish for those have no clue what this is. 'Kaapa' is a specific dish of Kumaon (part of Uttarakhand where I come from in India). There are many more savory dishes from Kumaon and I will focus on them from time to time when I try them. Palak ka Kaapa is made of spinach, curd and flour. It goes well with rice or roti. So heres the recipe:

Ingredients:
1. Spinach (250gms)
2. Curd ( 1/2 small bowl) (Beat it a little to make it smooth)
3. Rice paste (1/2 small bowl)
4. Cumin seeds (Jeera)
5. Asafoetida (Heeng)
6. Turmeric
7. Red chili powder (I use paprika powder instead of red chili powder in my cooking)
8. Oil
9. Salt
10. Water
11. Some hot spices (according to your own taste)

Preparation:
1. Wash and chop spinach. Boil it and keep it aside
2. Soak rice in water for 2 hours and then make paste out of it. (Of course I was lazy so I just heated the rice in water for some time and made a paste out of that)
3. In a pan, heat the oil.
4. Put heeng, jeera to it.
5. Now put turmeric and red chili powder and let the spices to get roasted.
6. Now add the boiled spinach to it. Save the water for later use from the boiled spinach.
7. Cook this for few minutes.
8. Add curd to it and keep mixing. Now add the rice paste and water from the boiled spinach to it.
9. Cook it for some time and keep mixing otherwise the rice paste can form lumps.
10. Add Salt and some garam masala (Hot spices) to make it.
11. Serve it with rice or roti.

Dont forget to eat some oranges ( and get vitamin C) to absorb all the iron you just got from Kaapa :)