Palak Paneer is a North Indian dish of palak or spinach and paneer – an Indian cheese. Like all dishes from India there are many, if not infinite ways to prepare a dish. No two dishes are the same from cook to cook. If you are fortunate to watch a number of grandmothers preparing Indian dishes, you will see there are no measuring spoons or specific measures, everything is prepared by lessons learned over the years. The best advice I can give to someone who is interested in Indian cooking is to become familiar with the basics and improvise from there.

The basic essentials are oil, mustard seed, cumin seed, ground cumin, coriander, turmeric, curry leaves, onion, garlic, ginger, green chilies, red chili powder, tomatoes, and cilantro. Then you merely need choose the bean, lentil, or vegetable you want to prepare and within these ingredient you can make many a dish. After making a few Indian dishes by recipe you will start to see the order of the process and maybe begin to understand how to adjust spices to better fit your own taste.

My cooking tends to be on the spicy side, so I will make extra effort to cut down on green chilies for the recipes I present. If a recipe calls for a teaspoon of red chili, I will recommend you begin with ¼ teaspoon and adjust up from there. Considering that not every city in America has an Indian grocery I will try to offer alternatives to items that may be difficult to find. In some circumstances you may have to buy items online as some recipes simply cannot do without particular flavors.

One more note, typically what is served in Indian restaurants in America is Punjabi style food. The reason being, it appears that many Punjabis are Sikhs and as such are not necessarily vegetarian, on the contrary, quite often they are omnivores like the majority of the U.S. population and so have no problem preparing meat based dishes. If you are lucky enough to live near a large Indian community you may have access to Gujarati cooking which tends to be on the spicy side and is always vegetarian. Gujaratis cook with ingredients Westerners may find difficult such as bitter melon, drumstick (no, not as in chicken), okra, and guvar. South Indian cooking such as what the Tamils or Telugus eat is a much more mild vegetarian diet featuring coconut, rice, idli, dosa, and vada. As you become more aware of Indian foods, you may find it interesting to explore the regional differences India has to offer.

How to make Palak Paneer:

14 oz. paneer, cubed
1 pound fresh spinach, cleaned and chopped
2 tbsp fresh chopped ginger
2 -3 cloves fresh crushed garlic
2 green chilies
1 red onion diced
2 medium or 3 small tomatoes, chopped
1 medium potato peeled and diced
3 bay leaves
1 tsp mustard seed
1 tsp cumin powder
1 tsp coriander powder
1 tsp turmeric
1 tbsp sugar
1 – 2 tsp sea salt
Grape seed oil or oil of your choice
Garam Masala – see recipe below

In medium frying pan with 2 tbsp oil, brown cubed paneer until golden. Drain and set to the side.

Place half the spinach in a large pot and cover with 2 cups of water. Add chopped green chilies, chopped tomato, ginger, and garlic. Boil for 10 minutes. Carefully pour contents into blender and puree into a coarse mixture.

In large pot or large frying pan, heat 3 tbsp oil on high heat and add mustard seed and cook until they begin to splutter. Add chopped onion cooking until lightly browned. Add cumin, coriander, turmeric, bay leaves and fry for 1 minute.

Add pureed spinach mixture, the reserved chopped spinach, the potato, salt and sugar and cook on high heat for 5 to 8 minutes. Add browned paneer, reduce to low and simmer for 20 to 30 minutes or until potato is soft or dissolved. Fold Garam Masala into dish 2 minutes prior to serving. We serve palak paneer with rice, Indian breads also make a nice accompaniment.

Garam Masala:

4 whole cloves
8 black peppercorns
Seeds from 2 green cardamom pods
¼ tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp nutmeg
A few strands of saffron

Lightly toast cloves, peppercorns, and cardamom seeds in dry frying pan. Using either a mortal and pestle or a clean coffee grinder to grind the toasted spices along with the cinnamon until mixture is ground fine. Stir in nutmeg and saffron. This recipe makes only enough for the above recipe.