Palak Paneer – Spinach Curry
Ingredients
3 tablespoons ghee (or oil or butter)
1 onion (white or yellow), diced
2 tablespoons fresh ginger, roughly chopped
4 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
1/2 – 1 whole jalapeño (or use 2 serrano peppers), roughly chopped
2 teaspoons cumin (ground or seeds)
2 teaspoons coriander (ground or seeds)
2 teaspoons garam masala
1 teaspoon black mustard seeds (optional)
283 – 340 grams (10-12 oz) frozen spinach (or use 1.5 lbs of fresh leaves, wilted separately, yielding 1.5 – 2 cups when wilted)
1 cup water
3/4 cup plain yogurt
1/2 cup cashews
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon sugar (or your preferred sweetener)
Directions for the Paneer
Heat a few tablespoons of ghee or oil in a large pan, and fry each side of the paneer until crispy and golden. Season with salt and pepper, remove from pan, and keep warm.
Directions for the Sauce
In a large pan, heat 3 tablespoons of ghee on medium heat. If using mustard seeds, coriander seeds, or cumin seeds, fry them in the ghee until they crack and sizzle.
Then add the rest of the spices, and let them temper for a minute. Add in the onion and fry gently until golden, about 15 minutes or so. Add in the garlic and ginger for the last 2 -3 minutes of cooking time, allowing those to sauté just long enough to no longer smell raw.
Add in the cup of water and frozen spinach, and simmer on low heat until the spinach is only just thawed. (Note: Do not cover as this will darken the colour of the spinach.)
Place the spinach mixture into your blender, add in the yoghurt, cashews, salt, and sugar. Blend well until smooth, adding extra water, a tablespoon at a time, if the mixture is too dry to blend. Season to taste, adding in some chili powder if desired.
Pour the mixture out of the blender and back into the pan, and simmer on medium low heat, uncovered so as not to darken the colour of the spinach. Add in the fried paneer, simmer until the cheese is warmed throughout, and serve.
My Notes
I didn’t pre-fry the paneer since we keep it frozen and we’ll likely just soak the cheese in hot water while heating the spinach sauce and getting the rice cooking, assembling it all on the day.
I used 1/2 kg of onions since we bought a big bag. I didn’t use the jalapeño since I didn’t have any in the house. Since I had ground cumin as well as seeds, I used half and half of each. I used brown mustard seeds but I’m sure the yellow ones I also had in the house would have worked just as well.
I didn’t have yoghurt in the house, so I just used 3/4 cup of milk.
I used peanuts instead of cashews, and I soaked them in just enough boiling water to cover them, 30 minutes before draining them and adding to the blender.
I also used 1 red pepper and 1 yellow pepper, sautéed ahead of time and returned to the sauce after the rest was blended, just because we had peppers in the house to use up.
This turned out really nice, but I think we’ll sprinkle red chili flakes to season when we serve to give it a bit of a kick. Next time, if I don’t use fresh chili peppers, I might add in 1/8 teaspoon Kashmiri chili powder (but no more than that, because it is potent and I am a wimp about hot spicy foods).
Doubling This Recipe: While this recipe probably doubles quite well, I’d have to do it in 2 batches due to the size of my blender. 🙂
