saru magura 🍲 // rutupriyadarsini

Colocasia make an appearance in cuisines across India. In Odisha, colocasia leaves, called saru patra, are stuffed, rolled, steamed, stirfried and finally added to a gravy.

Taro or colocasia has an understated presence in Indian cuisine. Across the length and breadth of the country, colocasia roots, leaves and stems are cooked in multiple ways. Tender taro leaves coated with gram flour and spices, and served as alu vadi, pathrode or patra across Maharashtra, Gujarat, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh need no introduction. A lesserknown version of the patra or pathrode exists in Odia cuisine as well, and is best enjoyed during the monsoons when young colocasia plants dance amidst the rains, water droplets rolling off their heartshaped hydrophobic leaves under an overcast sky.

Taro or colocasia is known as saru in Odia, and its leaves are referred as saru patra, where patra implies leaves. The roots of colocasia are readily used in Odia kitchens as well. It is indispensable, and often preferred to potatoes in many preparations, like santula a lowspice, mixed vegetable dish, dalma lentils cooked with root vegetables, gourds and other veggies like brinjal and beans, or ghanto another mixed vegetable dish, usually featuring sproutsand celebrated as saru besara where taro is cooked in a gravy of mustard paste.

Tarkari in Odia means a dish that contains some amount of gravy. The saru patra tarkari has stuffed, rolled, steamed and stirfried colocasia leaves floating in a thin gravy of onions, tomatoes, ambula mango kernels and mustard.

Fresh tender leaves are washed and laid out on a flat surface, and the stalk is separated from the base of the leaf. A thick bata or paste is made in a number of ways — by grinding soaked rice grains, or grinding rice with urad dal (hulled black gram) or even just grinding urad dal alone — along with cumin, green chilies, and a souring agent like tamarind, which helps counter the itchiness of colocasia. In some regions, this stuffing varies slightl