Life, you will agree, is a school without a gong. I have always held that there is no end to one’s learning — but the belief hit me forcibly some days ago when I heard the word kulekhara. I learnt that it was a leaf that could be spotted in some kitchens in the east — but was not as popular as the other greens that you found in the region.

Kulekhara or kule khara, I further learnt, tasted a bit like rocket leaves, had a nice leafy texture and a pretty green colour. And it could do wonders to a dish and to your haemoglobin levels.

That explains why chef Pradip Rozario of KK’s Fusion in Calcutta has been rustling up various kinds of dishes with this leafy vegetable. “It works especially well with fish,” says the chef, who firmly believes in the healing properties of the leaves.

Yet I find that not too many chefs have cooked or experimented with kulekhara or hygrophila. Some admit that they haven’t heard of it. Largely seen as a medicinal plant, it is found in ayurvedic preparations. Chef Susanta Sengupta of 6 Ballygunge Place tells me that when he was a child, he was often made to drink its juice for better health.

But chef Rozario points out that he seeks to present the greens in such a way that they also add to the taste of a dish. So he skewers ham and serves it with hummus that has been mixed with puréed kulekhara. Or he bakes rohu rubbed with kulekhara pesto and wrapped in bacon. He prepares the pesto by blending the leaves with olive oil, garlic and pine nuts.

I recall that consultant chef Shaun Kenworthy had at a food show in Calcutta some years ago prepared a salad of fried mourala (whitebait) fish with toasted melon seeds, honey and lemon juice. And he had served it with local greens including kulekhara.

It is a good salad ingredient, agrees Kaushik Saha, executive chef at The Park Kolkata. But it works in traditional Indian dishes, too.

“In aloo methi, you can use kulekhara instead of methi. The dish should be tempered with ajwain and red chillies,” he says. The leaves can also pep up the taste of a regular chicken curry, chef Saha says.

The leaves work well as a regular saag dish, too. Bhaskar Dasgupta, chef-in-charge of Oh! Calcutta in Delhi and Cyber Hub, Gurgaon, heats mustard oil and then fries red chillies, panchphoron (or fennel seeds) and ginger paste in it. He adds chopped leaves and sautés them well. Then he adds small pieces of small brinjals to the leaves, and salt and jeera powder. “Make sure that the brinjal pieces are not overcooked,” chef Dasgupta says.

Likewise, chef Rozario cooks the leaves like a dish of saag for his escalope of chicken. He heats olive oil, adds chopped onion, garlic and dried red chillies to it, and then the leaves. Once this is cooked, he stuffs the saag in chicken breasts and then grills them.

For his whole Kolkata bekti seared in kulekhara-infused salmon oil, he uses puréed leaves. For his melange of seafood, he grills octopus, bekti fillet and prawns and then tosses them in a kulekhara paste flavoured with onion, garlic and green chillies.

You can put the leaves in a simple dal and fish curry being cooked at home, too, chef Rozario says. “In fish curry, it’s best to add the leaves when the curry is almost done,” he says.

One lives and one learns. Some days ago, kulekhara and I were strangers. Now, we are best buddies.

Photographs: Subhendu Chaki;
Location courtesy: KK’s Fusion, Calcutta