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14
Haak
March 14, 2007 |
Collard Greens, Kashmiri Style
You’re looking for your headphones, and in the nether recesses of your drawer you find them, along with a pedometer whose existence was unclear upto then. Wait, there’s also that missing earring from the pair you love. That’s the lucky feeling we had when we started our recipe hunt for Nupur’s Vegetable Challenge.
We discovered the wonderful world of Kashmiri vegetarian cuisine. We found an authentic Indian recipe for collard greens. Plus, we ended up with a garam masala blend that we love. Now, if only our mortgage company would call us and say they’ve made a horrible mistake in their calculations, and our house has been paid off.
While some Kashmiri dishes like Roghan Josh, Kheema Matar, Mutton Yakhni, Dum Aloo and Phirni are familiar to most South Asians, the cuisine also comprises some exquisite, but relatively less known dishes found in the 36-course wedding feast called wazwan. Haak and Nadru Yahkni are two of them.
They’re served with Basmati rice - the fragrant result of cross-breeding long-grain rice with Kashmiri saffron.
Unlike most Brahmins around India (except Bengali Brahmins who eat seafood, and Gowd Saraswat Brahmins from Goa), Kashmiri Pandits are carnivores. Being a temperate climate, Kashmir produces a variety of dry fruits, nuts, as well as the saffron it is so well known for.
Other ingredients distinctive to Kashmir are nadru (lotus root), some unusual greens, the mild paprika (deghi mirch), fennel, dried ginger (sonth), black cardamom, mace, nutmeg, and a flower called “maval” (cock’s comb) which imparts a distinctive pink colour to dishes.
As this article explains:
One group of ingredients in particular seems to distinguish Hindu from Muslim cooking in the region. Local Hindu pandits abstain from consuming any members of the allium family, such as garlic, onions, and the unique local cross between a shallot and a spring onion called praan. They believe these pungent vegetables raise “base passions.” Perhaps to substitute for the missing flavor, Hindu cooks add asafoetida, a rather stinky tree resin that James Beard once compared favorably to truffles. Muslim cooks rarely if ever use asafoetida.
We first heard of Haak from Madhur Jaffrey’s World of the East Vegetarian Cooking. It’s a simple home-style version with chillies and asafoetida, where the greens are simmered for a while in mustard oil. (Recipe here)
The festive version is topped with crumbled ‘var’ - the dried cake of spices that is part of every Kashmiri pantry.
It is most commonly prepared with karam ka sag (collards). Other greens used include munja (kohlrabi greens), vasta (orach), kale and spinach.
We were excited to find an authentically Indian way to cook this nutritionally dense vegetable. Collards are closely related to kale, both being primitive forms of cabbage.
Collard greens are integral to southern U.S. cooking. In restaurants in this country, we often found them greasy and grey after languishing for hours in a pot over the stove. We also learnt, after tasting them, that this ‘vegetarian’ option in some country-style restaurants, is, more often than not, flavoured with bacon or ham hock.
Haak is usually prepared with whole baby collard leaves and simmered for an hour or so. We chopped up our leaves, and found 15 mintues to be sufficient. Try to use mustard oil. It gives a very distinctive musky undertone.
We will be preparing this again, and again, with a whole variety of greens.
RECIPE
Haak with Collard Greens
Ingredients
2 bunches collard greens (1/2 pound chopped)
2 spring onions (white and green parts chopped) (optional)
2 green chillies, chopped fine
1 red dried chilli, broken
2 tbsps. oil (preferably mustard)
a pinch of dried ginger (sonth)
1/2 tsp. yellow mustard seeds
1/2 tsp Kashmiri Garam Masala
salt to taste
Method
1. Clean the collards, remove the tough stems, and chop them.
2. Heat the mustard oil, add the mustard seeds, stir and add the green and red chillies, and the dried ginger.
3. After a few seconds, add the spring onions and stir. Then add the collard greens and salt, cook for 3 mintues or so until wilted, add 1/2 cup water, cover and cook for about 15 minutes on medium-low (or pressure cook for one whistle).
4. Sprinkle garam masala.
Serve with Basmati rice or rotis.
Paging Nupur at One Hot Stove.
****************************
Jammu and Kashmir in pictures
Kashmiri Pandit online cookbooks here and here.
More Haak here, here and here.
Pathrado/Pathrode/Patra with collards here and here.
A Kashmiri restaurant in New Jersey.
Collard Greens, haak, kashmir, Kashmiri-Garam-Masala, Spring-Onions/Scallions, vegan recipes, vegetarian recipes
Hey! There are several other Brahmins in India who eat meat: the Gaud Saraswat Brahmins or GSBs, for example. Me, being one of them
Brett probably had incomplete or incorrect information.
thank you, meat eating brahmin.
that was my own incomplete info, not brett’s. - bee
Now that’s a healthy recipe.I liked the mane alot.Was blowing my mind out to make a dish out of “H” veg.No luck so far…:).I too make collard greens dal, poriyal and even cook it with yogurt.You can cook even red/green swiss chard the indian way..tastes delightful…
thanks, maheshwari, for dropping by, and for your suggestions.
Dandelion greens may taste good if cooked this way. Something to try very soon as they will soon start showing their pretty yellow heads.
Collard greens is one of my favorite greens, love to stir-fry it with just onions and green chillies, will try your garam masala and the Haak next time.. BTW congrats on finding an H dish, I am letting H go.
Everytime I visit your site, you never fail to impress me with new dishes and info. Kashmiri cooking is really new to me. That post about gardening was helpful.
Ah ha, so you actually liked hakh? Hmmm. I looove hakh but I prepare mine just as the recipe link in your post. If you are going for authenticity, try it one time. It is a favorite of all Kashmiris and KPs include it even in their wedding feasts. Use whole leaves, or tear them into two (only if very large). Plain yoghurt, hakh and batta (kashmiri for cooked rice) - paradise!
And true blooded Kashmiris will have nothing to do with any fragrant rice, basmati-shasmati, no ma’am. We love our native starchy short grain!
In the Us, I used to make it with collard greens as you have done. Haak greens are very similar to a variety of tender greens (can’t recall what they were called) available at Chinese stores - it is the tops of the plant, 4-5 leaves attached together.
anita, i’m fascinated to hear about the short-grained rice. i would like to try haak the simple way, but J is so in love with that garam masala.
b
sig, try ‘handvo’.
jyothsna, thank you.
Haak!!:))
I love the photo and the info about Kashmiri Brahmins! Brahmins eating meat!!That would be a sight I wanna to see:))
Looks great and healthy collards which is Southern US staple soul food.
what’s your ‘H’ recipe? ash? i’m sure you’ll come up with something cool.
Bee, your blog is such an education for me. Thanks!
Handvo, I had to google it to know what it is. Thanks Bee… Let me see if I can make the deadline.
Add the garam masala by all means. But no mustard seeds, or onions or sonth. But, yes, both green and red chillies, whole or broken in two. As a Punjabi friend once said, Kashmiris are lazy, they cut everything in large chuncks - whole chillies, and ‘whole’ leaf, and whole aloo!!
this is an amazingly beautiful photograph and recipe. i can’t wait to try it. so glad to have found your blog! can’t wait to go exploring!
linda, i visited your blog, and all i can say is wow!!! how could i have missed it? - bee
Mucho gracias for posting this, Jai and Bee. I also admire the fact that you provided other informative links and my favorite link “Koshur Saal”.
Anita:
Plain yoghurt, hakh and batta (kashmiri for cooked rice) - paradise!
So true :).
you’re welcome, musical. we’re enamoured of kashmiri cuisine. it’s unusual and fabulous. - bee
Hey is something wrong? I thot i was the first one to leave a comment on this and I dont see anything
I remember writing that it will be good to hear Anita’s views on this one and I’m glad she has added her two valuable bits to this…I didn’t know Kashmiris ate short grained starchy rice like us Tamilians…Kashmir and Kanyakumari have a similarity after all 
nandita, many legit comments have been going to the spam folder. sorry we missed yours. - bee
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