Saag Paneer

Great idea Anna, am jumping on the bandwagon of posting a recipe for Chris's birthday (although a day late!)

My additon to this ever increasing list of fabulous food-tasticness is a traditional punjabi dish with spinach (or Palak) and can be made with paneer and/or potatoes.

I have no idea of quantities I'm afraid so these are rough guidelines. I just normally wing it and taste and smell as I go along!!

This will feed about 4-6 people.

What you need:

Ghee (enough to coat the bottom of the pan and the cover the onions)
1 tsp mustard seeds
2 medium size onions finally chopped
Garlic
Fresh Ginger & Fresh green chilli (can be finely chopped with a hand blender)
Salt
Cumin seeds (jeera)
Whole corriandar seeds (Dhania - these will needs to be crushed in a pestle and mortar style)
Turmaric (haldi)
half tin of tinned tomotoes (pureed)
Loads of spinach chopped. If you're buying from the supermarket in bags then you'll need about 8 bags. If buying fresh then you'll need about 5 bunches if quite big.
Paneer - some supermarkets stock this now
or potatoes
Fresh corriander
Masala

And this is how you do it....

In a large pan, heat the ghee. Once hot add the mustard seeds, cumin, ground corriander and garlic. This will release the flavour of the spices. let them sizzle for a few seconds and then add in the finely chopped onions. The onions are the important bit. The onions need to slow cook for about 20 mins or until they're a red/brown in colour (but not burnt!)

Once they turned red/brown in colour, add the finely chopped ginger, chilli and salt and turmaric (haldi) and then the pureed tomotoes. Cook the tomatoes for about 10 mins on a low heat to cook through and once it's in a paste add the spinach. Cover and cook for about half an hour or until it breaks down nicely, and then add the paneer and/or potatoes then cook for a further 20 mins or unitl the potatoes are cooked.

At the end, add about 1/2 - 1 tspn of masala to taste and some fresh chopped corriandar.

Serve with chappatti (roti) and rice.

Yum yum.