Palak Paneer Recipe

Have some extra spinach or looking for Indian vibes? Let’s make this Palak Paneer recipe with a healthy peace of mind!

Human psychology is fascinating, full of contraversial thoughts on a every level of our existence. We happily take a stroll under a green canopy in the clear sunshine but offer any green stuff for lunch to someone who isn’t aware of its benefits (kids) and get a straight refusal almost always.

Sure, green leafy stuff doesn’t taste like sugar filled junks, oil dipped starch or homemade pastas but flavor is just one half of why we fail our own body or if we are responsible for someone, their life too.

Must eat stuff have a pretty bad reputation, not because it tastes awful, just have a look at coffee, but because it threatens our autonomy as a free being when forced on us.

When our agency is threatened, we instantly get into a defensive mode and refuse anything that is offered to us, even if it’s done by, we trust, let alone someone we’ve just met.

Gaining our trust appear to be the easier part of the puzzle though as we can trust anyone that we can associate with, even on such superficial level as having similar clothing, furniture, car, haircut, or number of kids. It’s not a coincidence that detergent adverts always look the same way.

Once we are sucked into the trust tunnel, anything that they say to us is weighed with much more reason than if somebody outside of our trust circle would say the same thing. But as mentioned before, it’s not always enough to have a trusted buddy telling us what to do.

To get around our main defensive system, we have to be led to the solution, not given to us. We have to have at least the illusion of control to be able to change our mind. Of course, these strategies aren’t as easy as telling someone what to do but no victory without Jeopardy either!

Asking questions, that have the desired answer, can lead anyone to a solution that we want to achieve while offering the illusion of freedom, hence increasing the chances of acceptance. Of course, if we ask the wrong questions or people have different set of data to come to their conclusion, like it happens with fake news, things can go awry.

By not telling us what to do but leading us to the solution itself ,our mind can be changed, be those detergent, politics, or some green stuff on our plate.

Palak paneer is a vegetarian dish consisting of paneer which is a fresh cheese, sort of like cottage cheese and thick paste of spinach puree, called palak, in many Indian languages. So Palak paneer loosely translates to Spinach puree with Cottage cheese but thanks to a bunch of spices and herbs, flavor wise it’s a bit further from a what it sounds like.

Sure, it takes a bit of an effort to prepare everything from scratch but once we get over the initial skill  barriers, preparing palak paneer is quite easy.

Making paneer requires most of the heavy lifting but once it’s done and the weights are lifted off, making palak paneer is a breeze. If we can get our hands-on ready-made paneer then the whole process will become dead simple but if we make big batches then freeze the sliced-up pieces, our troubles will be reduced to the level of chicken Ceasar salad.

None the less, palak paneer will most likely never achieve the popularity of burgers, donuts, or French fries but the question still remains, why not give it a try?

Ingredients

• • 12 cups / 350g Spinach
  • 1 medium / 150g Tomato
  • 3 cloves / 9g Garlic (whole)
  • 1 inch / 2.5cm Ginger (peeled, grated)
  • 2 tablespoons / 30ml Cooking oil
  • 1 large / 200g Onion (finely cut)
  • 1 teaspoon / 5g Salt or to taste
  • 2 cloves / 6g Garlic (finely cut or crushed)
  • 1 cup / 240ml Water
  • 1 teaspoon / 2g Garam masala
  • ¼ teaspoon / 0.8g Turmeric powder
  • ½ teaspoon / 0.8g Chili powder or to taste
  • 2 tablespoons / 30ml Heavy cream
  • 8 oz / 220g Paneer cut into cubes

• 1 tablespoon / 15ml Lemon juice (optional)

How to make Palak paneer

1. First we need to blanch (quickly boil and cool) the spinach. Boil water and salt then add the spinach leaves.
2. Once the leaves are wilted, about 2 – 3 minutes take them out with a sieve.
3. Cool them off under running cold water or in an ice bath.
4. Add spinach, tomato, 3 cloves whole garlic and grated ginger into a food processor and puree them. Grating ginger may not be necessary if we have a food processor that is able to cope with it.
5. Heat oil in a pan to high then saute (stir-fry) finely cut onion and salt until glassy / translucent color, about 3 – 5 minutes.
6. Add garlic and saute (stir-fry) until the onions starts to change color, about 5 – 10 minutes.
7. Mix in the spinach puree and some water.
8. Cover with a lid and simmer it on low to medium heat for 10 minutes. It will bubble and splatter but the lid should keep it in place. Stir regularly to avoid sticking.
9. Add garam masala, turmeric powder, chili, cream and more salt if necessary. Mix it well then remove from heat.
10. On a tablespoon of oil sear cubed paneer on at least two sides.
11. Mix paneer into the spinach puree. Leave some out for decoration. Add optional lemon juice if desired.

Enjoy!

Pin now, Enjoy later!