Cooking Arugula

Other day me and my wife were roaming around farmers market (it is a weekly market where farmers from local area sell there produce) and thought we should try to cook up some other greens other than spinach (aka palak). We saw a store selling some greens without a name, we figured we should be adventurous and picked up a bunch, my wife couldn't resist the temptation and asked the seller lady what is it called and the lady gave a stare as though we were ignorant or novice and said it was "Arugula".

A day later our adventurous spirit died and we were back to our safe zone and wondering what should we do with so much Arugula. We called my brother, I consider him a goat who at some point would have tried all possible greens and veggies. He said "yeah it is very healthy and like all healthy stuff it is not great tasting. You can try adding some extra masala and dal and give it a shot" and added "It tastes so weird that even insects wont eat it". I guess that was enough to scare me and I almost made up my mind to throw it away. The conservationist in my wife woke up and insisted that we should cook a sambar with it and if it turns out bad we shall look for alternatives later.

So began the process, I started cutting the greens and could smell a strong pungent odor. I started sauteing and the odor almost filled the entire apartment (nope it didn't trigger any fire alarm) and interestingly the odor kept reducing and after long enough time the odor pretty much died away.

I was still scared when it came time to eat, needless to say I prayed to all Indian and other gods. As it turns out the bitter/pungent taste of Arugula was lost in our cooking process and it tasted pretty delicious. Only snag was that it seemed a bit under cooked. I guess it needed more cooking time than spinach.

At the end of this experiment we decided to add Arugula to our cooking list and probably in the future combine spinach and Arugula and give that a shot or get more adventurous and try some other greens/veggies.