Amaranth Bhaji Dana ma Gosht

The best way to eat your greens is to add meat to it.

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There was a time when I found vegetables like zucchini, red capsicum and mushrooms quite cool. For some reason, these vegetables are called ‘exotic vegetables’.

When in fact, what you need to do to discover the real ‘exotic’ is to leave India for a bit and then come back. It is then that you will discover the sheer wealth and variety of produce that grows in India (Follow the hashtag #IndianFoodMovement and #KnowYourDesiVegetable on Instagram if you don’t believe me).

For example, I am ashamed to confess that it took me almost six years of cooking professionally to learn that chickpeas didn’t just come out of tin. Nor did they come in a plastic bag full of dry beans. Six long years to learn that actually, you could eat them in their fresh green form too. After this discovery I got braver and have tried vegetables like red amaranth (laal chawli), purple yam (kandh), sorgum grains (ponkh) and rat tail radish (laal mougri).

For a few months now, I have had about five screenshots of recipes of Bhaji Dana ma Gosht on my desktop. Bhaji Dana ma Gosht is a quintessential Parsi dish combining leafy greens (bhaji), green peas (dana), and tender mutton (gosht), reflecting our deep-rooted cultural journey of mixing Persian and Gujarati food styles.

Parsis typically enjoy Bhaji Dana ma Gosht during family gatherings and festive celebrations. On Nowruz (Parsi new year) we’ll serve it as our token ‘vegetarian’ dish - yes it has mutton but the vegetarians can eat the gravy, right. Right? It’s warming, hearty nature also makes it a popular choice during cooler months, but honestly, you can eat it whenever you feel like it.

As I was looking through my inspiration screenshots, I was also scrolling through this #KnowYourDesiVegetable hashtag and happened upon Amaranth. Apparently, it’s the new kale.

‘Ting’ the light bulb went off in my head. I decided to make Bhaji Dana ma Gosht (finally), but instead of spinach, I would use Amaranth, and on impulse, I decided to replace the green pea ‘dana’ with green chickpeas instead! While the traditional recipe uses chopped leaves, I decided to puree mine and make it into a Saagwala-esque style creamy gravy.

Ingredients (for 4-6 servings)

• 2 onions, roughly chopped

• 1/2 tsp ginger paste

• 1/2 tsp garlic paste

• 1 big bunch Amaranth leaves, roughly chopped

• 1/2 tsp coriander powder

• 1/2 tsp cumin powder

• 1 tsp garam masala

• 1/2 tsp red chilli powder

• 500 gm boneless lamb or goat meat

• 100 ml fresh cream

• 1 small lemon, sliced and deseeded

• 200 gram fresh green chickpeas (replace with fresh or frozen peas if you’d like)

• salt to taste

• 200 ml oil