Palak Paneer ( spinach and cottage cheese )

PALAK PANEER

This is a very popular dish which is enjoyed with  both roti and rice. Palak has got many benefits and should be consumed but young and old.

Generally at home and specially in Bengal this dish is prepared without onion and garlic . But today I will show you how you can get the taste like what we get in Restaurants.

• First I boiled 5 bunches of spinach ( palak) with 5 green chillies 
• Added 2cups of water and 1tsp of salt.
• After boiling let it cool down.
• Then make it into a paste in your mixer grinder and keep it aside.

• In the meantime sauté 200 gms of cottage cheese in a pan/ kadai with 1 Tbsp of ghee.

• Now in the cooker added 1 Tbsp of ghee 
• Add 1 tsp of jeera(cumin seeds) and 2 bay leaves.
• Fry for a minute.

• Then add 1 big onion , finely chopped. 
• Along with it fry 1 tsp of ginger-garlic paste.
• Fry till the raw smell goes away.

• Now add 2 tsp of kasuri methi.
• Add 1tsp of salt and sugar.
• Adjust salt according to your taste .
• I don't add chilli powder as I use green chili .
• Stir it for a minute and then add the spinach paste along with water. 
• Cook in medium flame for 15 minutes. 
• Now add the fried cottage cheese ( paneer).
• Finally add 1tsp of garam masala powder and 1tsp of ghee from top.
• Stir well and turn off the stove/gas.

Paneer Posto (Cottage Cheese cubes with Poppy Seed Paste)

This dish, Makes me nostalgic, because when I got married there were only 2 dishes I could make with confidence, this one which is a cottage cheese delicacy and the other was pumpkin with eggs.
I especially wanted to write this on my blog so that one day our children can cook up these kind of delicate things instead of burgers and sandwiches and with the passage of time we tend to forget things as we grow old, and may forget many ingredients too. This serves as a permanent reference .

Ingredients:

• Half a coconut (will be made into paste)

• 4-5 green chillies
• 2 tsp of mustard seeds
• 2 tsp of poppy seeds

• 1 tsp of salt 
• 1 tsp of sugar
• 1 tsp of turmeric powder
• 250 grams of paneer( cottage cheese)

• 2 tsp of mustard oil

 Method:

• First make a fine paste out of the coconut, green chilly, mustard and poppy seeds in a mixer or blender, adding 1/4 th cup of water, sugar and salt to it and  keep in aside.

• Now take a bowl and grease the bowl with mustard oil and place the the cottage cheese (paneer) cubes in it nicely. 

• Now add the paste made from poppy, mustard and coconut evenly over the paneer and stir it a little so that the paneer cubes get evenly coated with the paste Then spread 1 tsp of mustard oil from top.

.

There are two ways to cook this:

• Either microwave it on high for 10 minutes covered in cling film (plastic cling wrap)    

                                                  Or

• Steam the mixture made above in a pressure cooker / steam cooker / slow cooker, without a whistle (in pressure cooker) for around 20 minutes.

• It's optional but you can garnish your dish with fresh coriander  leaves. 

~Enjoy with hot rice~