Saag Paneer
Paneer cheese is a curd cheese with a gentle flavour which is unique in having a melting point high enough that you can fry it without it sticking to the pan. Whatever you do, don't try replacing it with a regular cheese -- the strong taste of cheddar is not what you want to bring to this meal.
You'll need
- A very large frying pan, pot, or wok
- A small blender
- Cooking oil
- turmeric
- garam masala
- vegetable stock cubes
Ingredients (for 4 servings)
- 450g of frozen spinach
- about 225g of paneer
- An onion
- six cloves of garlic
- a piece of raw ginger about the size of your thumb
Method
- Peel the garlic and the ginger, and peel and chop the onion.
- Put the ginger and about half the garlic in the blender with a little oil, and blend until you have a smooth paste. This ginger and garlic paste is a base for a lot of Indian cooking, so if you plan on making more dishes you can save time by making a bigger batch now.
- Slice the paneer into cubes about an inch on a side.
- Pour a thin layer of oil into your frying pan, add two teaspoonfuls of turmeric, and stir and heat it. The turmeric will change colour from bright yellow to brown.
- Add your chopped paneer cubes to the pan. Roll them about in the turmeric oil with your stirrer so that they become well-coated with it.
- When the paneer starts to brown, reduce the heat and add the onion, the garlic-ginger paste, a crumbled stock cube, and two big teaspoonfuls of garam masala.
- Keep this moving until the onion is clear and white.
- Add the rest of the garlic and the pucks of frozen spinach to the pan, and pour in a little bit of water to keep the ingredients from sticking.
- Keep the pan on a low simmer, stirring occasionally and moving the pucks of spinach around with your stirrer to help them thaw out. If you have a lid for the pan, add it now -- otherwise, you might have to add a little water over time as the stuff you've added boils off. Before long, the pucks should have broken down into their constituents.
- The curry should be ready in about half an hour. If it's still too watery for your taste at this point, mix a teaspoon of cornflour with a little water and add it to the pan -- that will help it thicken.
Variations
- If you don't have garam masala, curry powder makes a passable substitute.
- I've deliberately made this curry spicy rather than hot -- but if you want some fire, chop and fry some chillies and add them to the onions.
- If you'd like this recipe to be more vegan, you can use tofu as a substitute for the paneer.
- If you'd like this recipe to be less vegan, you can add some cream to the pan once the spinach has thawed. You'll need to let it simmer for a little longer so that the cream reduces, but it does make the resulting curry thick and rich.