Ah, saag. The marvellous old world Punjabi food without the use of tomato, potato etc. My grandma used to have proper procedure for saag. Let mustard grow on an untilled land, pluck the stalks and shed off the mature leaves. Take handful of stalks, make a bundle, chop them into 5 mm pieces. Put them in an earthen clay pot, just submerge the chopped stalks in water and give it a slow open flame. Season with salt. After half an hour, put common roadside ‘weeds’ baathoo, chilayi, spinach. Let it boil for another half an hour. Take the pot off, put handful of maize flour and blend the mixture halfway. Use more maize flour as required, saag should acquire a non-liquid appearance. Serve it in a bowl, with churned raw milk butter. Maize flour roti or ‘tortilla’. And lassi, which is just the by-product of milk churning process.
The only old world, pre-wheat Punjabi main course meal that is seriously tasty. It is nutritionally rich as it originated as a farmer’s meal while being easy to make.
Good luck serving saag to the world.