What is it and how do you cook it?

What is this and how do you cook it?

Since I wanted to pick up a few things at the local Indian grocery this week, I decided to go on produce day. Those visits usually end with me holding something green asking, "what is this, and how do you cook it?" Some kind person in the store always tells me. Today's mystery food is this:

It's green! According to the internet, there is another edible variety of this plant that has red in its leaves as well. 

Any guesses yet? When I got it, I was basically looking at stems because the leafy part was inside of a plastic bag. Even if I saw the whole thing, I still wouldn't know what it was. As it turns out, more people are familiar with eating the seeds of this plant than the leaves. It's amaranth. At least it was a plant I had heard of before. It came with the instructions to cook it like spinach. That's not too hard.

While I did pick the seeds off separately, I did wash them and toss them in as well. I opted to let these soak for a bit to make sure they got clean. There was a lot of stuff left in the water afterwards. The hard stems are discarded. 

After soaking for a while, they got a rough chop, and then got sauteed with green onions, garlic, black mustard seeds (they do not taste at all like the vile yellow mustard used as a condiment in this country), cumin seeds, and coriander seeds. I also added powdered cumin and coriander, along with some turmeric, red pepper flakes and salt. 

I'm glad I used my big pan!

Just to see it all cook down to a thin layer in the bottom. 

The final product turned out pretty good. Amaranth doesn't taste like spinach, but it was still really good. I also gave it a shake of Mongolian fire oil while eating it. That oil really enhanced the overall flavor of the dish. It's definitely a green I will buy again if I happen to be in the store on the right day to find it.