Scenes from Popeye the Sailor cartoons play in my head whenever I cook saag. Whatever perilous situation Popeye may land himself into, a can of spinach magically appears, which he quickly opens and empties into his mouth, growing so strong and muscular as to be able to break through all barriers and beat the daylights out of all villains and emerge victorious.

When we were kids, my mother always made sure that we got to watch Popeye cartoons, because they were good tools to convince us to eat spinach, which we weren’t too keen on at that age.

There are many different types of saag [leafy greens] but the ones cooked at our house were either palak [spinach] or sarsoon [mustard]. Both looked similar to me as the leaves of both were dark green in colour and mushy. The palak would often be cooked with meat but sarsoon was often cooked with cottage cheese in it.

Sometimes, if the cook was feeling adventurous in the kitchen, he would cook mooli ke paton ka saag [radish greens]. I only tried it recently and it seemed somewhat bitter to me. But a friend swears the best combo saag is one his mother makes, combining the green leaves of sarsoon, shaljam [turnip] and mooli as well as radishes........

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