Palak (Spinach) Paneer (Cottage Cheese)

Spinach, freshly picked from the garden and used to make palak paneer

This is a delicious vegetarian dish, effectively puréed spinach (palak), cooked to perfection with onions, tomatoes and a variety of spices, to which purée is added sweet corn and a light, white cheese (called paneer). It is best eaten with your own, home-made chapatis.

Special equipment: 

Electric chopper/blender (can chop by hand but it is not then really "pukkah"); 
Pressure cooker (can use normal pot).

Palak Paneer (Spinach and Cottage Cheese)

2 packets baby-leaf spinach leaves (you can get at Woolworths. The larger leafed variety can also be used, but you have to strip the white centre out of the leaves, which is time-consuming).

1 tablespoon corn oil or peanut oil or ghee (clarified butter made from cow or buffalo milk)

4 small to medium onions (preferably red Indian onions, but the white ones do just as well, they just have a little less of a 'bite')

1 tablespoon cumin seeds

4 cloves garlic (large cloves of garlic)

½ thumb fresh ginger 

Fresh green chilli – generally use one per person, so 2-4, depending on how hot you like your dishes 

2 large-ish tomatoes

1 tsp turmeric

1 tablespoon coriander powder

1 teaspoon salt (depending on whether the corn is in salt water.) 

1 small tin whole corn or frozen corn (150g tin per packet of spinach)

1 small packet paneer (can be substituted with 1 small pot of chunky cottage cheese)

Bring out pressure cooker, if you have one; it can be undertaken in a normal pot, it just takes longer. Heat oil until it shimmers slightly. Add cumin seeds directly to the hot oil, so they sizzle and ‘pop’ in it. Add the onion, which have been chopped medium-fine, until a wheat brown in colour, so it provides a contrast to the green of the spinach. The colour of dishes is very important, if you are making a chicken dish, you would ensure the onion is very dark brown, again, for a contrast, though here, of course, you purée it altogether at the end, so the browning is for flavour, not colour. 

Caramelised onions with cumin seeds, the start of palak paneer

Chop, preferably with a blender (it’s so much easier on your hands) the garlic and ginger – there should be equal amounts of garlic and ginger, so if the cloves are very small, use more of them. Add garlic and ginger paste to the onions once browned. 

Blend tomatoes (medium fine) and chillies, add turmeric, salt and coriander powder and blend again (that way the powders don't burn in the oil, but are blended in with the tomatoes).

The number of chillies used is according to taste, and of course, how hot the chillies are themselvess. A rule of thumb is one per person eating the food. I’d use between 3-4 for this dish of the Arabic/Indian chillies – but roughly half that amount for the South African chillies I got at Checkers in PMB – they are potent. You can always add red chilli powder to the dish later if it’s not hot enough for you, so erring on the side of caution is always advocated, especially if you have people over for dinner, while families are obliged to suffer on occasion from your cooking trials and triumphs, it is best not to alienate your guests, particularly if you are a newcomer to an area or country. 

Add the tomato mixture to the dish. Let it reduce. (Again, you should use equal quantities of onion and tomato - in their 'reduced' portions.)

Add chopped-up spinach (remember to have washed it free of sand under hot water) as the tomato is cooking. As the spinach reduces, add more, until all the spinach is cooking. You will probably have to add a little water to the dish.

Add the spinach to the onion and tomato mixture and let it steam and reduce

In true Northern Indian style, you would be using a pressure cooker, and would cook it for 3–4 whistles, I find just cooking it al dente is fine with us. Once cooked, you would traditionally blend the spinach into a purée in the pot itself using one of the blender attachments. 

While the spinach purée may look slightly revolting, it's delicious actually  

Again, the “pureed” feel of food is traditional to this region; as “Westerners”, we have no problem with the ‘coarser’ meal. That said, if you are going to make a palak paneer, it really is worth investing in a stick blender since, after all, it is about keeping to the original dish. (In other words, yes, it looks gross, but trust me, the taste is such it's mildly addictive.)

Once the spinach is puréed add corn (frozen or tinned or freshly chopped off direct from the cob) and cook until it is tender. As you dish it up, you would traditionally add KARIM (their own home-made soft white cheese) or you can stir in some plain chunky cottage cheese. We tend to have it without the cottage cheese if we can't find Karim.

This is best eaten with chapatis, as shown below:

Palak paneer served with home-made chapati