Oxalate content of Indian spinach dishes cooked in a wok

Total, soluble and insoluble oxalate contents of four different traditional wok-cooked dishes, based on spinach (palak) with added spices, were determined by HPLC chromatography. Four different palak dishes were cooked with three different combinations of spices. During the final stage of cooking an Indian cottage cheese, paneer, was added to one dish. Each combination was cooked for 15 min in a wok to give the saak dishes while other dishes containing the same combination of Indian spices and paneer were cooked for a further 10 min, until they were dry to give the saak bhaji dishes. Cooking spinach in a wok to make saak and saak bhaji resulted in mean reductions of 17.6% of soluble oxalate compared to the raw spinach, soluble oxalate reductions were not observed in the plain palak saak dishes while the addition of ginger gave a mean increase in the total and soluble oxalates (23% and 43%, respectively) compared to palak saak. Addition of paneer, an Indian cheese product resulted in an overall reduction in total and soluble oxalates by dilution. Palak, palak saak and palak saah with ginger contained a mean of 1.7 and 6.9 g soluble oxalate/standard serving respectively while the two palak paneer dishes contained a mean of 0.6 g soluble oxalate/standard serving.