Palak Paneer

I had not planned to post any Paneer recipe with my homemade paneer, but when Priti mentioned that she is looking forward for one in her comment, I clicked last minute snaps of Palak Paneer – the most common Paneer and also Palak recipe.

 

Paneer was not a common dish @ my place, it was only bought when we had to prepare some royal recipe for our vegetarian guests, and Mom’s common recipe was Matar Paneer. So palak paneer or other favourite of mine Paneer Burji were something that became regular after I did some trials with these. As this was one of the initial experiments; I’ve tried varied versions, and ended up with following recipe as my favourite and most reliable one. 

You Need:

• Fresh Spinach Leaves: about 2C
• Cottage Cheese: about ¼ kg or the one that might give you about 15 number of an inch pieces
• Ghee\Oil: for shallow frying and tempering
• Cloves: 2
• Cardamom: 1
• Black Pepper corns: 4-5
• Cumin Seeds: 1tsp
• Onion: 1Large – grinded to past
• Tomato: 1 medium - pureed
• Ginger + Garlic + Green Chillies Paste: 3 tbsp
• Turmeric powder: ½ tsp
• Red Chilli powder: 1 tsp
• Sugar: about 1 tsp
• Salt to taste

You Do:

1. Wash Spinach Leaves under whole lot of water couple of times blanch them with little water salt and sugar for five minutes or so. When done – let them cool off.
2. Once cooled – grind to smooth paste.
3. In flat pan heat ghee, temper with cumin seeds and shallow fry the Paneer pieces, till they are light brown from both sides.
4. Heat Kadai , add ghee – temper with cloves + black pepper + Cardamom , follow with ginger + garlic + chilli paste.
5. Add Onion paste to it – sauté to caramelize them. Follow with tomato paste.
6. Add red chilli + turmeric and after frying for couple of minutes add the spinach paste. Add salt if you need more. (normally palak has its own salty taste so take care while adding salt)
7. Sauté till oil separates – add paneer pieces. Cook covered for couple of minutes.

Done. Serve with hot Rotis or Jeera Rice.

I love its dark green colour with mix of white cheese in between; we had this as our lunch Tiffin.