Palak Paneer Recipe
Posted on: 20/Nov/2017 3:10:10 PM
Many a times, we exclaim at the creamy, juicy taste of Palak Paneer! Why am I unable to achieve the same flavor when I home-cook the dish? This is often asked by many gourmets. To all your exclamations, here we present to you the exactly same Restaurant-style method of cooking Palak Paneer.
Palak Paneer is a very popular spinach-based dish. It is a gravy that uses spinach puree, a few spices and paneer. It is mainly a north Indian dish, but widely served in south India and other parts of the country as well.
Required ingredients
Ingredients for spinach puree
- Palak 250 grams or 8 to 9 spinach
- Boiling water 3 cups
- Water 2 cups
- Ingredients to fry paneer
- Oil 3 tbsp.
- Paneer 250 grams
Ingredients for gravy or sauce
- Cumin seeds ½ spoon
- Tej patta or Bay leaves 2 small
- Ginger garlic paste 1 spoon
- Green chillies (finely chopped) 2
- Turmeric powder Ό teaspoon
- Crushed black pepper ½ teaspoon
- Kasuri methi 1 teaspoon
- Garam masala powder ½ teaspoon
- Low fat cream Ό cup
- Sugar a pinch
- Salt as required for the dish
Preparation
How to prepare spinach puree?
- Step 1 - Wash spinach leaves thoroughly in water and drain excess water using a colander. If the leaves are tender, leave the stems as it is, but if they are too hard, remove the fibrous ones and discard them.
- Step 2 - Take a pan and boil water and add spinach leaves to it.
- Step 3 - Blanch spinach leaves for about 3 minutes
- Step 4 - Take another bowl full of fresh water and add a few ice cubes.
- Step 5 - After blanching, take the leaves and add them into the bowl of ice water. Allow the leaves to rest in the bowl for about a minute and then remove them
- Step 6 - Now, add these leaves into a mixer jar and make a fine paste out of it. While grinding, do not add excess water.
Paneer for Palak Paneer
Note: this is an optional step. If you do not want to fry paneer and use it as it is in the gravy, go ahead.
- Step 1 - Take a non-stick pan and heat oil in it. Once it gets hot, add paneer cubes.
- Step 2 - Keep frying until all the cubes get slightly golden in color. Make sure not to make it overcooked.
- Step 3 - Once fried, remove from oil and extract the excess oil by placing on a kitchen tissue.
Method to prepare Palak Paneer gravy
- Step 1 - In the same pan in which you fried Paneer, add cumin seeds and Tej Patta (bay leaves). Allow the cumin seeds to crackle.
- Step 2 - Now, add finely chopped onions and fry well until it turns slight brown in color.
- Step 3 - Once onions are fried, add ginger garlic paste, and finely chopped green chillies.
- Step 4 - Keep frying until the raw smell of ginger garlic paste goes off.
- Step 5 - Now, add spice powders including turmeric powder, black pepper powder and Kasuri Methi (dried fenugreek leaves), and mix thoroughly with onions. Fry this mixture for 2 minutes.
- Step 6 - Now add the spinach puree already prepared.
- Step 7 - Add required salt and a pinch of sugar to enhance the overall taste of the dish.
- Step 7 - Stir well and allllow the mixture to get cooked in a medium flame. Closet the pan with a lid and allow this gravy to get cooked for about 5 to 7 minutes. The gravy will become thicker and the spinach puree will get cooked well.
- Step 8 - Once cooked, add low fat cream and Garam masala powder and mix well. Make sure to mix the cream thoroughly with the spinach gravy.
- Step 9 - Now turn off the flame and add fried paneer cubes and mix well. Close the pan and allow the paneer cubes to absorb the juices and flavors of Palak gravy into it.
