Palak (Spinach) Paneer
January 5th, 2007 filed under Paneer (Indian Cheese)
Palak Paneer is creamy spinach with paneer (indian home made paneer). This is a very popular with youngsters and served in every indian resturant. The creamy texture of spinach with paneer is a very good combination.
Serves 4.
Ingredients:
- 1 10 oz package of chopped frozen spinach or 4 cups of fresh finely chopped spinach
- 1/3 lb paneer
- 2 medium tomatoes, pureed
- 1 teaspoon chopped ginger
- 1 teaspoon coriander powder (dhania)
- 1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder (haldi)
- 1/2 teaspoon red chili powder
- 1 tablespoon oil
- 1/2 teaspoon cumin seed (jeera)
- Pinch of asafetida (hing)
- 1/2 teaspoon salt, or to taste
- 2 tablespoons of whole wheat flour
- 1/3 cup heavy cream
- 1/2 tomato thinly sliced to garnish
Method:
- If using frozen spinach thaw and blend it just for a minute so spinach has a creamy texture but without becoming pasty.
- blend the tomatoes and ginger to make puree.
- Mix coriander, turmeric, and red chili with tomato puree and set aside.
- Mix whole-wheat flour with heavy cream and set aside.
- Cube the paneer in about half inch pieces and deep fry them on medium high heat just for few minutes so paneer become very light gold in color, take paneer out on paper towel so extra oil can be absorbed.
- Heat the oil in a saucepan. Test the heat by adding one cumin seed to the oil; if it cracks right away it is ready.
- Add hing and cumin seed. After cumin seeds crack, add the tomato puree mixture, and let it cook for a few minutes until the tomato puree is about half in volume.
- Add the spinach, and let it cook on low medium heat for about 10 minutes covered.
- Add heavy cream mixture and let this cook another four to five minutes.
- Add paneer and fold it gently with spinach and let it simmer for a 2-3 minutes. Pot should remain covered until the cooking is finished, otherwise the spinach will splatter.
- Transfer the spinach to a serving dish and spread the tomato slices over the top, and cover the dish so tomato slices get tender with the steam from the spinach.
Suggestion
You can replace the heavy cream with 1 1/2 cups of milk.
This recipe is absolutely delicious. I was so pleased to find a recipe for Palak Paneer that was so enjoyable. Thank you for your recipes, I hope you have a cook book coming out soon!
Manjulaji, I’ve been following your recipe’s for months now and i really appreciate that you are sharing your knowledge so well. Thank you so much for this. I’m your big fan and will keep following your recipes in future.
hi manjula,
thanks for this wonderful recipe. i didnt have red chillies, so i added a quarter spoon of cayenne pepper, and also 1 tsp of garam masala, 1/2 tsp of black pepper to make it spicy. it came out great!
my only question is, how do we get a dark green color like the kind you get when you order in a restaurant?
Assuming that you are using fresh spinach,blanch it and while doing that add a tsp of salt.
The spinach looses it’s colour if you keep it a very long time in the hot water.Also, once you keep it on the flame do not over cook it.
So just avoid above two things and you can get the dark green colour.
Hello Manjulaji…. This recipe is simply and with just a few key ingredients….I am going to make it tonight, but using fresh spinach and fresh tomatoes….would it be possible to use gram flour instead of wheat flour, as I want to make it a bit thicker ?…. I very mush enjoy the way you present your videos…its like my Mum is doing her cooking…great presentation….Thanks once again.
I’m going to try this for four of my American friends in Korea! I shall come back again. Thanks a lot for your receipe!
my son and made this dish tonight and we Both found it to be absolutly delightfull
Hello Manjula. I love your videos. The recipe in the video says 1 Tablespoon of ginger but the print beaneath says 1 teaspoon. Which is correct? Thank you!
Michele,
1 teaspoon shredded ginger.
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Great recipe! A question though…
In the video it looks like you are using flour but the recipe above states that we need to use whole wheat fllour. Which one of the two is to be used?
Ani,
It is whole wheat flour.
Hello Manjulaji…. This recipe is simply superb….I made it yesterday and both my son and husband simply loved it….Thankyou so much for giving such easy and simple recipes that taste just fantastic…..