Kolmi/Kalmi Shaker/Shaager Ghonto Or Ipomoea Aquatica Curry

Name: Kolmi Shaker Ghonto
Prep time: 30 min
Cook time: 30 min
Total time: 1 h
Yield: 4
Cuisine: Bengali

Vegetable Curry
May 25, 2014
Moumita Ghosh
270 Likes

Ipomoea aquatica is a semiaquatic, tropical plant grown as a vegetable for its tender shoots and leaves. It is found throughout the tropical and subtropical regions of the world, although it is not known where it originated. This plant is known in English as water spinach, river spinach, water morning glory, water convolvulus, or by the more ambiguous names Chinese spinach, Chinese convolvulus, swamp cabbage or kangkong in Southeast Asia. It is known as phak bung in Thai, rau mung in Vietnamese, trokuon in Khmer, kalmi shak in Bengali, kangkung in Malay and Indonesian and hayoyo in Ghana. In Bangladesh and West Bengal, it is known as kolmishak and stir-fried preparation of the leaves is a very popular dish----Wikipedia

In West Bengal, this leafy vegetable is stir fried with eggplant, sweet potato & plantain. This "Kolmi Shaak er Ghonto" recipe is my Grand mom's recipe, after her , my mom adopted this recipe from her, and I adopted from my mom. This recipe is little lenthy in process, but tastes really good. This dish goes best with steamed plain rice. Coconut & fried vadi is added on the top of the curry to giev extra taste to the dish.

Details

Yields

4 serving(s)

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Time

Preperation
30 Minutes

Cooking
30 Minutes

Healty Diet

Services

Cooking Level
Easy

Meal Type
Lunch

Cuisine
Bengali

Ingredients of Kolmi Shaker Ghonto

Vegetables :

Kalmi/Kolmi Shaak - 1 bunch, chopped, discard the hard stems
Plantain - 1 small, peeled, cut into big chunks
Eggplant - 1 medium size, cut into big chunks
Sweet potato - 1 medium, peeled and cut into big chunks

For tempering :

Vegetable oil - 1 tablespoon
Ghee - 1 tablespoon
Bay leaf - 1
Cumin seeds - 1 teaspoon

Spices to be added :

Turmeric - 1/2 teaspoon
Cumin powder - 1 teaspoon
Coriander powder - 2 teaspoons
Black pepper powder - 1/2 teaspoon

Other Ingredients :

Salt & sugar as per taste
Grated coconut - for garnishing
Vadi - 10 pieces Ghee - 1 teaspoon

Directions to make Kolmi Shaker Ghonto in steps

Steps

Take the chopped "Shaak" in a large pasta strainer and run under the cold tap water for 5 minutes to clean the "Shaak" thoroughly.

Take the eggplant, plantain & sweet potatoes in a pressure cooker and boil for 1 whistle on high heat and turn off the heat and let the pressure release itself.

Now boil water in a large pan, when the water will start boiling add the chopped cleaned shaak into boiled water and keep this aside for 15 minutes to blanch the shaak. After 15 minutes strain the blanched shaak and put into a large bowl.

Now take the boiled vegetables out from the cooker and add to the large where blanched shaak has been kept.

Now let everything to be cool down completely. When they are completely cool down, mash them all together, make sure there are no big chunks in the mashed vegetables. When everything is mashed keep aside.

Now heat the ghee & oil in a pan, temper the oil with cumin seed & bay leaf. Add all the mashed vegetable to the pan, add all the spices & salt & sugar to the pan and stir fry for 15-20 minutes.

After stir frying for 15-20 minutes pour the "Kalmi Shaak er Ghonto" in a bowl.

Heat some ghee in a small pan, fry the vadi till golden brown, take them out of the pan, coarsely ground them and sprinkle on the ""Kalmi Shaak er Ghonto" along with grated coconut.

Serve with steamed rice.