I’ve always had a thing for this delicious Indian dish – the greenness of the spinach, the texture of that paneer (it’s something like a firm Indian cottage cheese), the slightly mysterious nature of the spices used. I adapted a recipe from one of my favourite sources (SBS Food) and I was pretty pleased with the result! Instead of pureeing the blanched spinach I coarsely chopped it (because I’m lazy and couldn’t be bothered washing the blender), and I must say I quite liked the texture.

Here’s my adapted recipe! It tastes amazing with some brown rice that’s been fragrantly cooked with cinnamon, cardamom and cloves…

Rustic Palak Paneer (serves 4)

Ingredients:

• 2 bunches of spinach, leaves picked
• 2 tbs vegetable oil
• 1 tsp cumin seeds
• 2 cm piece of ginger, crushed
• 6 garlic cloves, crushed
• 1 medium onion, finely chopped
• 200g chopped tomatoes
• salt to taste
• 200g paneer, cubed
• 1 tsp powdered fenugreek
• pinch of garam masala

Method:

1. Pick the leaves of the spinach and discard the stalks. Make extra sure that you wash out all the sand, grittiness in this dish is not generally desired! It may take a fair few washes.
2. Blanch the spinach in boiling water for 2-3 minutes and dunk them in cold water to stop the cooking process.
3. Coarsely chop. (Or finely, if that’s the way you roll)
4. Heat the oil in a saucepan. Add cumin seeds, ginger, garlic and onion and fry until fragrant and slightly golden brown.
5. Add your chopped tomatoes and cook until very soft.
6. Stir in the spinach and season fairly generously with salt.
7. Add the paneer and stir for long enough for the cheese to heat through.
8. Add the fenugreek and garam masala at the end.
9. Serve with basmati rice and your favourite curry! Personally I think this dish goes amazingly with butter chicken…

Recipe adapted from SBS Food.