Palak-Mushroom ( Mushrooms In Green Sauce)

Musrooms In Green Sauce

Palak-Mushroom (Mushrooms In Green Sauce)

This recipe is very close to my heart for two reasons

1. It requires least efforts and oil
2. It is very nutritious and yummy

Mushrooms are fleshy, fat free, gluten free, and cholesterol free, rich in nutrients and low in calories. So is true for spinach and coriander. Thus using Spinach and coriander to make sauce not only makes it rich in nutrients but also a visual treat.

Green gravy/sauce with mushrooms is feast to eyes.  Simple roti (Indian flat bread), Parathas, Nan and Steamed rice all go well with it.

 Nutritional facts: (Approximately)

Cal 52

Fat 4.5gm

Cholesterol 5mg

Dietary Fibers 4gm

Carbs 6.4 gm

Sugar 3.5 gm

Sodium 1.2gm

Potassium 1gm

Proteins 3.5gm

Rich in Vitamin C, B-6, B-12, A and D

Minerals in abundance Iron, Calcium

Micronutrients Manganese, Magnesium, Selenium, Phosphorous

Preparation Time: 10-15 minutes

Cooking Time: 15 minutes

Servings: 6 Large Servings

Ingredients Required For Making Mushroom In Green Sauce:

• Button Mushrooms: 100gm
• 100 gm Button Mushrooms
• 100 gm Spinach leafs (Stalks removed)
• 25 gm Coriander Leafs (Stalks removed)
• 2-3 Cloves of Garlic
• 1 Small Onion 
• 10-15 gm Cream (Optional)
• 1 Teaspoon Olive oil
• 1 Teaspoon Cumin Seeds
• 2 Green chilies or to taste
• Salt to taste

Direction to Make Mushroom In Green sauce:

• Wash spinach and coriander leafs separately and drain.
• Wash mushrooms and remove any stalks which look discolored.
• Cut spinach.
• Boil 50 ml. water and when water starts boiling add spinach. Give a stir and switch off the heat. Cover water and spinach mixture and allow to cook in its own heat. Spinach should not lose its beautiful green color.

Cooked Spinach

• Chop coriander leafs and keep aside.

Chopped Coriander leafs 

• Chop garlic to fine pieces and keep aside.
• Cut mushrooms to required size as per your liking. I prefer my mushrooms to be little thick pieces so if they are of small size then each is cut to 4 pieces, bigger ones are cut to 6 pieces.
• Cut onions and green chilies and saute then in 1/2 teaspoon oil till translucent

Sauteed Onion and Green Chilies

• Blitz spinach with water and coriander leafs and green chilies-onion mixture in a grinder/ mixer to make a fine paste. The paste will be fragrant green color.

Paste of Spinac, Coriander leafs, Onion and Green chilies

• In a wok take olive oil and heat.
• Add cumin seeds and when they start spluttering add finely chopped garlic. Cook on low heat till the garlic attains light brown color.
• Add Mushrooms and cook on low heat with costant stirring for 2 minutes.

Mushroom with cumin Seeds and Garlic

After 1 Minute of Cooking

• Add spinach and coriander leaf’s paste. Stir and cook on low heat for about a minute not more.
• Cook for 2-3 minutes on low heat wtih rgular stirring.

Mushrooms Ready for the Green Paste

Green Paste added to Mushrooms

After 3 Minutes of Cooking

• Add salt and mix.
• Add 100 ml. water and mix.
• Bring neat to high and give one quick boil.
• Switch off the heat add cream and mix.

Ready to be Served

Palak Mushroom (Mushrooms In Green Sauce)

• Serve hot with Flat bread/rice/nan/paranthas.

Tips:

• Stalks should be removed else the fibers from stalks will give unpleasant texture to sauce/gravy.
• Spinach should not be boiled else the green color will turn of darker shade and the gravy/sauce will not be of the beautiful green color.
• Mushrooms should not be cut too small or thin they should be thick enough to be juicy in sauce/gravy.
• Taste the chilies before grinding some are bland some super-hot.
• Too long cooking of mushrooms or gravy/sauce will cause mushrooms to lose their water and become rubbery and sauce to become of darker shade than we want in this recipe.
• Do not use red chilies as it will change the color and flavor of sauce.

Alternate Suggestions:

• Cream and water can be replaced by 100 ml. full cream/ low fat milk. If you are using milk then add it in the step where water is to be added, replacing water by milk. Using milk will reduce the fat content in the sauce.No water should be added when milk is being used. 
• You can omit onions. If onions are being omitted then green chilies should be added raw to spinach and coriander for making pastee.
• For those who do not partake or are allergic to garlic it can be omitted.

Delicious Vegetable Cutlets /स्वादिष्ट सब्जियों के कट्लेट्स

Pan fried Low fat Vegetable Cutlets

One of the best way to make low fat cutlets are to pan fry them with minimum of oil. I find cutlets one of the best dish along with toasted bread  and Red chili sauce for breakfast and with coriander-mint chutney or Hariyali chutney for snacks. Since vegetable cutlets have potatoes in it thus it is high in carbohydrates.  Apart from starch Potatoes are rich in antioxidants which help in fighting cancer; they contain potassium which is beneficial for heart, vitamin C and proteins. Adding lots of different vegetables makes the cutlets very nutritious. Beans add protein content, carrots vitamin A and coriander, spinach iron, green chili Vitamin C.Peas are rich in calcium. Due to different vegetables present in these cutlets the dietary fiber content is also high, which is very much desirable to maintain good digestive system. Thus this is one of the best method to make children enjoy eating vegetables.

Preparation Time: 30min.

Cooking Time: 30min.

Servings: 25 -30Cutlets (approximately)

Calories in 25-30 cutlets 201 k cal.( approximately)

Ingredients Required For Making Pan Fried Vegetable Cutlets:

• 250 gm. Potatoes

• 100gm. French Beans

• 100gm. Carrots

150 gm Cauliflower

• 250 gm. Peas

• One Medium size onion(optional)

• 8-10 leaves of fresh Spinach

• 2-3 sprigs of Fresh Coriander

• 1 Medium size Capsicum

• 1 Medium size Red bell pepper (optional)

• 1-2 Green Chilies

• 1/2Tea spoon Red chili powder

• 1/2Teaspoon Garam masala

• 5-6 Tea spoon Corn flour

• Salt to taste 
• 2-3 ml. Olive oil / any cooking oil 

Direction for Making Pan Fried Vegetable Cutlets:

• Boil the potatoes as such that they are cooked but remain firm.

• Wash the beans, carrots, and dry them.

• Break the Cauliflower to small florets , wash and dry them

• Cut Cauliflower finely.

• Remove the thread from beans and cut them fine.

Finely cut Cauliflower and Beans

• Cut the carrots fine.

• Cut the onion very fine.

• Take 100 ml.  water in a thick bottom pan and keep on gas on high flame.

• When water starts boiling put carrots and beans , cauliflower to it and boil till they partly cooked. The cooked beans and carrot pieces should become soft after cooking.(approximately 5 min.)
• Sieve the boiled vegetables and allow them to cool

• Shell peas.

• Take 50 ml. water in a pan boil the water and add shelled peas to it and cook for 10min.(approximately 2min.)
• Sieve the peas and allow to cool.

• Wash spinach and remove the stalks form the leaves.

• Discard the stalks and dry the leaves.

• Cut spinach leaves very fine.

• Wash the coriander sprigs and drain all water.

• Cut washed and dried coriander leaves very fine.

• Cut green chilies very fine.

• Cut capsicum and red bell pepper fine. 

Finely cut Capsicum and Red bell pepper

• Peel boiled potatoes and mash them using a potato masher or with your hands.

Boiled Potatoes

Mashed Potatoes

• Mash boiled beans, carrots and cauliflower. Do not make paste mash them.
• Mash peas coarsely.

• To the mashed potatoes add

• Mashed vegetables

• Finely cut spinach

• Coriander leaves

• Finely cut onions

• Finely cut capsicum and red bell pepper.

• Salt

• Red chili powder

• Garam masala

• Amchur

• Corn flour

• Mix nicely to make uniform mixture.

• Make 25-30 balls from the mixture and flatten them to 1-2 cm. thickness.

• Cut them to the required shape with the help of mold.

• Roll the cutlets in corn flour and keep aside for 5min. so that the corn flour sticks to the surface of the cutlets.

• Take a non-stick flat pan (tawa) and put 8-10 drops of olive oil or any cooking oil on it and spread it on the tawa.

• Heat the tawa on high flame.

• When the tawa / pan becomes hot, (not smoking hot) place the cutlets on it at a distance of 2-3 cm. from each other.

• Lower the flame and let the cutlets become golden brown from the side they are touching the tawa.

Cutlets Pan fried to golden brown color on one side

• Sprinkle 2-3 drop of oil on each cutlet and turn them over carefully.

• Allow them to cook on the other side also till they become golden brown.

Cutlets done to Golden brown color on the other side

• Low fat, tasty and nutritious cutlets are ready.

Low fat Pan Fried Vegetable Cutlets

• Enjoy hot cutlets with coriander-mint chutney or Hariyali chutney.

http://jyotsna-pant.blogspot.com/2011/10/green-coriander-and-mint-chutney.html
http://jyotsna-pant.blogspot.com/2012/06/hariyali-chutney-raw-mango-chutney.html

Pan fried Low fat Vegetable cutlets with Coriander-Mint Chutney

• Apply some Red chili sauce
  

http://jyotsna-pant.blogspot.in/2011/09/red-and-green-chilly-sauce.html
on a toasted bread piece place a cutlet on it apply red chili sauce on another bread piece and place it on the cutlet and enjoy your breakfast.

Tips:

• While boiling potatoes add little salt to the water to ensure potatoes remain firm.

• Add one small piece of lemon to the water while boiling potatoes to ensure the container does not turn black after boiling water.

• Make sure potatoes are not over cooked else the mixture of cutlets will not be firm and cutlets will not come out nice.

• Beans and carrots should be cooked nicely else solid pieces of beans and carrot will come in cutlet which is not desirable.

• Peas should be coarsely mashed.

• The edges of cutlet can be cooked to brown color by placing them by the side if tawa.

• Olive oil is healthy medium of cooking and light to digest.
• While adding vegetables corn flour and soices to the mashed potatoes salt should be added last.
• If your cutlet mixture becomes slightly thin (not firm) then add some corn flour to it.

Suggested Variations:

• Coriander can be replaced by parsley or celery.

• To change the flavor 1/4 tea spoon of thyme / oregano can be added.

• Boiled and grated beet root can be added to the cutlet mixture. It will add color and nutritive value to the cutlets.

• Corn flour can be replaced by bread crumbs / Rice flour.

• If you have left over beans / carrot / cauliflower vegetable just mash it and add to the mixture. Good use of left over veggies can be made this way.
• Powder some nutrela nuggets ( soya beans nuggets), soak the powder in water for 4-5 min., squeeze water form the soaked powder of Nutrela nuggets and add the soaked nutrela nuggets powder to the cutlet mixture it will make the cutlets more crysp and of course add more fiber and protein content to the cutlets.