Paneer Masala- Indian cottage cheese curry

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When visiting Indian restaurants, especially ones that serve north Indian cuisine, one item is almost invariably found in their menu................Paneer masala ! Whether it is named paneer masala, paneer butter masala, or shahi paneer,  some version of this popular curry is offered in most Indian restaurants. There seem to be many, many versions of this curry, it seems like every one has their own version of making this curry. My version omits one item that I commonly find used in this curry....cream, and honestly I never miss it. The cashews give this curry such a creamy texture that I do not feel the need to add cream at all.



I know the ingredients for this curry look long and daunting, but most of the items used in this curry are common spices that are stocked in the pantry. This is a very easy peasy recipe, nothing complicated about it and the taste is awesome. Ideally this curry tastes fantastic with served with Indian flat bread like naan or tandoori roti, but it can just as easily be served with plain roti, or phulkas/ chapathis or even plain steamed rice. I was hoping to get better pictures for this curry, but I was having not a great day picture wise :-(  So for now I am posting this recipe with my current set of pictures and hope to update the pics at a later date. If your weekend menu includes paneer, give this recipe a try and as always, let me know what you think about it :)



Click here for a printable view of this recipe

Ingredients and Method to make Paneer Masala 
2 1/2 cups of cubed paneer
(To make your own paneer check out this post with step by step pictures)
1 to 2 tbsp oil to shallow fry the paneer
1 tsp kasuri methi (dried fenugreek leaves)
salt to taste
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp red chili powder (or to taste) (can be substituted with cayenne powder)
1/4 cup whole milk

For the masala/ gravy
1 large red onion cut fine
2 medium tomatoes cut fine
a thin sliver of ginger chopped into small pieces
1 clove garlic peeled and cut into small pieces
2 tbsp oil/ butter/ clarified butter(ghee/nei)
2 whole dry red chilies
2 cloves
3 small green cardamoms (elaichi)
1 small (1 inch) piece cinnamon
10 whole black peppercorns (miri/milagu)
1/2 tsp coriander seeds (dhania/ kothamalli virai)
1/4 cup cashewnuts broken into small pieces

Shallow fry the paneer cubes in 1 to 2 tbsp of oil until it is slightly golden/ creamy golden and keep aside.

For the masala/ gravy
Heat oil/ butter/ clarified butter in a large heavy bottomed pan, add onions and saute until onions turn transparent. Add ginger and garlic and stir a few times.

Add whole dry red chilies, cloves, cardamom, cinnamon, whole black peppercorns and coriander seeds (that is all the whole spices) and stir a few times.

Add tomatoes and cook until tomatoes turn soft and mushy. Remove from heat and keep aside to cool a little.

Puree this entire mixture along with 1/4 cup of cashews until smooth, adding a little water if required.
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Transfer this gravy back to the pan and place on heat. Add shallow fried paneer pieces to the gravy, add salt to taste, sugar, kasuri methi, chili powder (if using), water if required to achieve desired consistency and simmer on low heat for the flavors to mingle. 

Finally add milk, mix well, allow the curry to simmer for another minute or so on low heat, then remove.

Serve hot with any kind of Indian flat bread like naan/ tandoori roti/ roti or even phulkas/ chapathis. Or this curry could be served with some plain steamed rice/ or jeera rice

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Mughlai style medley curry

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Usually the words "Mughlai style" brings to mind rich creamy decadent dishes that are oozing with cream and flavor from the spices used in this style of cooking.  It definitely falls under the category of indulgence in my book, something to be enjoyed occasionally , read that as rarely :) Yet from time to time I find some kinds of Mughlai recipes that surprise me or intrigue me enough to want to make it as soon as possible.  One such very interesting recipe that I wanted to make as soon as I came across it was this palak ka salan (spinach and chickpea curry).

A few weeks back when I was visiting my family, I was just flipping the channel when I came across the last bit of a cookery show where the lady was making a Mughlai style curry. Her use of bell peppers and zucchini and the fact that she used chick pea flour (besan) to thicken the gravy caught my interest and I was very keen to try it. When I returned, I decided to try this for a weekend lunch. At the last moment I changed my mind about wanting to use chick pea flour because I thought it might probably remind me of this curry instead, not quite Mughlai tasting.  So I decided to use a combination of cashews and greek yogurt to give me a creamy gravy.  The result was this delicious curry that we really enjoyed, can't wait to make this one again especially with some naans/ kulchas the next time :)



Here is another picture of this curry......



 Click here for a printable version of this recipe

Ingredients and Method to make Mughlai Curry
1 large red onion cut fine
1 large yellow bell pepper deseeded and cut into 3/4 inch length strips
1 large green bell pepper (same as above)
1 large red bell pepper (same as above)
1 orange bell pepper (same as above)
1/4 cup cashew nut pieces soaked in water for 30 minutes
2 zucchini peeled and cut into 3/4 inch pieces
4 medium potatoes peeled and cut into 1/2 inch to 3/4 inch pieces
2 medium tomatoes cut fine

1 tbsp clarified butter (ghee/nei)
1 tbsp oil

3 to 4 small bay leaves
2 whole cloves
3 whole cardamoms
2 to 3- 1/2 inch pieces of cinnamon
1 inch piece of ginger minced
1/2 tsp minced garlic
salt to taste
3/4 tsp garam masala (or to taste) (can be substituted with curry powder)
1/4 cup plain unflavored greek yogurt (can be substituted with plain yogurt)
3 to 4 tbsp finely cut cilantro (coriander leaves) for garnish
1/4 tsp red chili powder (optional ) (or to taste)

Optional spice powder (powder the below three ingredients fine) (see notes)
1 cardamom seed
1/2 inch piece of cinnamon
1 clove

Heat oil + clarified butter in a large heavy bottomed pan. Add bay leaves, cloves, cinnamon and cardamom to it and stir a few times. Add onions and saute on low heat until the onions are transparent, make sure not to brown the onions. Add minced ginger and garlic and stir a couple of times.

Add potatoes and cook on low heat until the potatoes are slightly soft. When the potatoes are slightly softer add bell peppers, zucchini, salt to taste, garam masala and close the pan with a lid and allow the vegetables to cook on low to medium low heat. When the vegetables are almost cooked, add tomatoes and allow to cook along with the rest of the vegetables until the tomatoes are soft.

Grind soaked cashew nuts with a little water until it turns to a fine paste. Add greek yogurt/ yogurt to this mixture and give it another turn in the blender/ mixer for it to blend together.

Add this cashew-yogurt mixture to the curry, add water if required to achieve required consistency. Adjust salt or other spices to taste, add red chili powder (if using) and simmer for a few minutes for the flavors to mingle.

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Finally garnish with cilantro and spice powder (if using),  remove from heat and serve hot with any kind of Indian flat bread like naan, kulcha, rotis or even phulkas. This curry can also be served with jeera rice (cumin flavored rice) or plain steamed rice.

Notes:
The additional spice powder is optional, if you want a little more pronounced flavor in your curry you can use this spice powder in the end. I felt it gave the curry a lovely fragrance and flavor. If not you can just skip it, the curry tastes pretty awesome even without it :)

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Spinach Lentil Curry ~ Palak ka saalan and some humor

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My cousin R sent me an email that contained this humorous piece in it.I completely enjoyed it and thought my readers may like it too !

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A woman writes to the IT Technical support Guy

Dear Tech Support,

Last year I upgraded from Boyfriend 5.0 to Husband 1.0 and I noticed a distinct slowdown in the overall system performance, particularly in the flower and jewellery applications, which operated flawlessly under Boyfriend 5.0.

In addition, Husband 1.0 uninstalled many other valuable programs, such as
Romance 9.5 and Personal Attention 6.5, and then installed undesirable programs such as NEWS 5.0, MONEY 3.0 and CRICKET 4.1.

Conversation 8.0 no longer runs, and Housecleaning 2.6 simply crashes the system.

Please note that I have tried running Nagging 5.3 to fix these problems, but to no avail.

What can I do?

Signed,

____________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________ __

Reply

DEAR Madam,

First, keep in mind, Boyfriend 5.0 is an Entertainment Package, while Husband 1.0 is an operating system.

Please enter command: ithoughtyoulovedme. Html and try to download Tears 6.2 and do not forget to install the Guilt 3.0 update.
If that application works as designed, Husband1.0 should then automatically run the applications Jewellery 2.0 and Flowers 3.5..

However, remember, overuse of the above application can cause Husband 1.0 to default to Silence 2.5 or Beer 6.1.
Please note that Beer 6.1 is a very bad program that will download the Snoring Loudly Beta.

Whatever you do, DO NOT under any circumstances install Mother-In-Law 1.0 (it runs a virus in the background that will eventually seize control of all your system resources.)

In addition, please do not attempt to reinstall the Boyfriend 5.0 program. These are unsupported applications and will crash Husband 1.0.

In summary, Husband 1.0 is a great program, but it does have limited memory and cannot learn new applications quickly.
You might consider buying additional software to improve memory and performance.
We recommend: Cooking 3.0 and Good Looks 7.7.

Good Luck Madam!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cool huh, I sure enjoyed a good laugh when I read this piece. Let me know what you all think about it :-)

Moving on, Mughlai cuisine rarely finds a place in my kitchen because all that cream and butter does not quite fit in with my regular cooking. That said, on a spur I picked up Nita Mehta's Mughlai Vegetarian cooking when I visited India last time, hoping I may get around to trying something from that book. Yes, I know,  mostly it was just wishful thinking :-)

Anyway one of the recipes that appealed to me from that cookbook was this simple spinach curry called palak ka saalan. This recipe below is my adaptation of the recipe I found in the book. The curry turned out to be simple,tasty and quick to make. Try this if you like spinach and are looking for something simple to go with Roti ( Indian flat bread) or even plain rice.



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Ingredients and Method to make Palak ka saalan
1/2 cup Split chick pea lentil ( Chana dhal/ kadalai parappu) soaked in water for 30 minutes
1 large onion cut fine (pyaaz/ vengayam)
2 medium tomatoes cut fine (tamatar/ thakkali)
4 cups spinach leaves cut fine(palak/ keerai)
1/2 tsp minced ginger (adrak/ inji)
2 green chilies slit lengthwise and cut fine (or to taste) (hara mirch/ pachai molagai)
1 tbsp oil
3/4 tsp coriander powder ( dhania)
1/2 tsp red chili powder (or to taste) (optional) (lal mirch)
1/2 tsp garam masala (My recipe for garam masala can be found here ) (can be substituted with any other curry powder)
salt to taste (namak/ uppu)
1/2 cup water

Soak chana dhal in water for about 30 minutes.

Cook the chana dhal either in the pressure cooker or on stove top or microwave until soft. Refer to this post for steps to cook lentils in different ways. Keep cooked lentils aside

Heat oil in a large heavy bottomed pan, add onions and saute until onions are transparent.

Add ginger and green chillies and stir a few times. Add tomatoes and stir until tomatoes cook and become soft and mushy.

Add coriander powder, red chili powder, garam masala and stir a few times.

Add finely cut spinach, salt to taste, water and let spinach cook for a few minutes.

When spinach is cooked, mash half the lentils and add to the spinach. And add the balance of lentils without mashing. Mix well and heat for a few minutes for the flavors to blend.

Serve hot with Roti of choice or Plain rice

Serves approximately 2 to 3

Notes

You can mash all the lentils and add to spinach too, I just mash half to give it a little texture.

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