In the early 90s, Chef Sanjeev Kapoor was very popular and used to host a cooking program named Khana Khazana. I was a big fan of his and never missed any of his episodes. But, I was only good at watching and preaching. When it came to cooking, I was absolutely null.

Once, I decided to try one of his dishes named ”shaam-savera”. This dish was chef Sanjeev Kapoor’s modernised take on spinach/palak paneer. The paneer was stuffed inside spinach balls and served with gravy. The koftas had a dark green outer and white core, hence the name.

My mother advised me to try an easy dish to start cooking. But yours truly, miss ”know it all” had to start with the signature dish. So, I immediately looked into the fridge for ingredients. My brother sprinted to the nearby market to get paneer.

Then started the process of making spinach koftas. The first batch got dispersed in the oil because of too much water. Another spinach bunch was procured and cleaned. Somehow, after a couple of trial and error, the dish that was supposed to get ready by lunch got prepared by dinner. The chewy palak/spinach koftas were a little blackish and had little resemblance to Sanjeev Kapoor’s signature dish.

It would not be wrong to name my version of the dish as Savere se Shaam (Morning to Evening) rather than Sham-Savera.