A Monday Recipe: Palak Paneer (ayurvedic version)

Happy Valentine's Day!
This is my FAVORITE Palak Paneer version, with no onion or garlic. The flavor in the spices just POP!



The first thing you have to do is make paneer.

Paneer Recipe:
Large heavy pot
1 gal milk
1/2 cup lemon juice (I used bottled)

Boil 1 cup of water in the large pot, then add the milk and reduce heat to medium high. Stir occasionally, and when the milk begins to boil, add the lemon juice, stirring until the whey separates from the milk solids. If this doesn't happen right away, add a bit more lemon juice.

Drain in a super fine cheese cloth  or fine tea towels with a not-too-heavy weight on it (a plate w/ a can of beans, for example) to squeeze out the remaining whey. I do mine in a colander so it will be a round shape, and I let it drain for 10 minutes or so. Place in a bag and refrigerate,  wrap well and freeze, or use right away.

Here's mine, cubed for the recipe.

Palak Paneer

Ingredients:
3 bunches of spinach (or, 2 cans in dire emergencies)
2T ghee
**
2t ginger
2t jalapeno
2 whole cloves, crushed
1/2t fennel seeds, crushed
1/2t cumin seeds, crushed
1t coriander powder
1/2t black mustard seeds
1/4t kalonji
1/4t turmeric
**
1T ghee
1t garam masala
1/4c cashew bits
Paneer from 1 gal milk.


Wash, chop and steam your spinach. Drain in a colander. Cool, then blend in blender until smooth (I never do this part: I like the hunks of spinach as opposed to the smooth gravy, but both are delicious)


Remember on the chana dal curry recipe I talked about prepping all your ingredients and put in bowls in the order you add them to the pan? I do that here, too. All of the ingredients in between the ** are added at once, so go ahead and measure them all into one bowl. All the seeds that need to be crushed I add together to a spice grinder and do a fast whirl, so they're still coarse.

Heat 2T ghee in the a heavy bottomed pot. Add the ** ingredients, saute for 1 minutes. Stir in spinach and salt to taste. Cook over low for a few minutes. Move all the spinach to one side of the pan, and add remaining ghee. Saute the cashews for a minute, then stir in garam masala.

After cooking for 1 more minute, stir into the spinach. Add the paneer and cook for 5 minutes on low.

Serve hot with any flat bread.