Palak paneer

Palak= Spinach.
Paneer= Cottage Cheese.
Palak Paneer: A dish made from Spinach and Cottage Cheese, very p[opular in Indian Restaurants across the globe.

This recipe is a long due request from Clare, of eat stuff. Here you are. Hope you like it.

Once sung, you always want to hum, again eh!
I made palak paneer, and I thought I will use home made paneer only. It tastes only much better, and as I said earlier it is quite easy too. So, Home made it was to be.

But easy, stuff, for Bachelor :-)
How to prepare Home-made Cottage Cheese here?


Ingredients:
Paneer-I used Home made, but you will get Cottage Cheese or paneer from any Supermarket. 250 grams.
1 onion finely chopped
5 cloves of garlic and a finger of ginger chopped.
Methi or Fenugreek seed
Kasuri methi or Fenugreek leaves. ( A Good Cure for Diabetes too)
2 bunch or half a Kilo of Spinach or Palak in Hindi
Green Chillis, sliced in halves
Jeera or cumin seeds.


1) Frying the masalas: ( Masala is the base for Indian Cooking)
In two TBS of vegetable oil( heated in a thick bottom pan), add Pre soaked half tsp each of Jeera (Cumin seed) and methi (Fenugreek seed) , half tsp mustard seed, one TBS Kasuri methi, also pre soaked.(Fenugreek Leaves ), 2 sliced green chili( I used 4 and it was quite hot), then add the crushed ginger-garlic ( half inch ginger and 5 cloves of garlic.

STEP 2) Uh! wait, before the masala were fried, I forgot to mention that the paneer need to be cut and medium fried in oil. The same oil might be use for the masala, after the removing the paneer to keep aside. Mash the paneer roughly to make it into small pieces. ( This should be before step 1... I am a bachelor myself :-)

Now slightly before the masala is burnt,( ie the garlic should just turn slight brown), add the Chopped palak or Spinach.

I used 2 bunch of palak ( spinach), very finely chopped. Chop as small as possible, I am not going to make it into a paste. ( I don't like the paste though I will tell you when to do it if you wish to).

Cover and cook for 10 minutes in low heat. Water will come out. let it. Now open and increase heat, and saute or mix well. Add a little garam masala( half tsp) and salt to taste. When the water has dried, add a little water i/4 of a cup maybe. Now you may remove the mixture and grind in a mixture to get a paste. ( I skipped this part).

Add the crushed panner, into the ground misture or into the kadhai as I did without grinding.

Mix well, and cook in low heat for 5 minutes, THEN, ADD A DOLLOP of desi Ghee( butter might be used in the absence of ghee) . Serve with anything, It was heavenly.

Howzatt!!

Tagged with:: Palak: Paneer: India: Desi: Food: Spinach: Cheese

Small announcement: From next weekend on; The weekend food event at Anthony's Kitchen will be hereby known as Curry Mela. Anthony's weekend favorites. The name Culinlinkus sounds like a very bad joke, it seems. But I really loved the term.*Smiles*. Anyway do come for the Curry Mela, Anthony's weekend favorites. And it would be nice if you spread the word.