Add a punch of flavour with 'sarson'

My gardening hobby has its ebbs and flows.

- NANDITA IYER

Sarson with chow chow; and (right) sarson crackers.

Some years, I'm obsessively buying seeds, coco-peat, compost, seedling trays, and attempting to set up a vegetable farm in what is in reality a modest terrace garden.And then, because it’s all organic, the snails and other garden predators enjoy the harvest as much as we hope to. They polish off the tender green seedlings during their midnight feasts and I'm back to square one with nothing left to grow into plants.

Then I'll see a neighbour—or someone on my Instagram feed—posting photos or videos of their garden harvests, baskets brimming with produce, and the gardening bug bites all over again. This time around, I've been lucky: the seeds have shown an impressive germination rate of over 80%.

Which is when it became time to protect the seedlings from snackers with voracious appetites. I was only partly successful. Some were eaten, mostly the lettuce varieties I had planted.

But three greens from the crucifer family seem to have been spared, possibly because of their strong smell and sharp taste—rocket, red kale, and mustard (sarson).

Winters have always been sarson ka saag, makke di roti, and gajar ka halwa season on food blogs, and now, on food social media. It used to be difficult to find sarson leaves in Bengaluru even two years ago. But over the past year or so, they've begun appearing on quick-commerce apps almost year-round, which makes one wonder how such a fiercely seasonal green has become a perennial presence.