Paneer Dilkhush…a treat for my children

Hi Every one! Yesterday was Children’s Day and we spent our day with both the kids. We went to ‘Rajdhaani’ and had Gujarati Thali for the lunch and and were fully fed up after the heavy meals that we skipped our dinner very conveniently. We watched Ajab Prem ki…. and the kids enjoyed thoroughly, we also had a few bouts of laughter but overall it’s a movie you need to watch without using your head.

In the name Paneer Dilkhush the word Dilkhush means ‘a happy heart’ or something that will make the heart happy. I had planned to make this paneer for them as my both the kids are complete paneer freaks, but after the heavy meals we had…the plan got postponed. Anyhow, the paneer was made for the lunch the next day and kids enjoyed thoroughly so the paneer came true to it’s name. My younger son approached me and said Mamma you have made very nice paneer it tastes like the one they make in restaurants. I had made pooris to go with it and so they had a heart  and stomach filled lunch…grins.

The paneer is  a very mild tomatolicious  gravy made with boiled ingredients and cashews, read the method to understand the simplicity of the curry and what makes it delectable….

Ingredients

4 onions

3 garlic pods

1/2 inch piece ginger

3 tomatoes

a handful of cashew nuts soaked in water

300 gms paneer (cottage cheese)

oil+clarified butter for cooking

Spices

2 tsp degi mirch

1/2 tsp cumin pwd

3 –4 tsp coriander pwd

1/4 tsp garam masala

salt to taste

Whole spices

8-10 black pepper

1 black cardamom

3 green cardamaom

2 bay leaves

1 small stick cinnamon

a  very small piece javitri (nutmeg flower)

Method

Boil onion, garlic and ginger together. Cool, remove the water and save for later use and grind the ginger, garlic & onions to a fine paste. Similarly grind cashews and add tomatoes and grind again. Do not make a complete paste of the cashews keep the texture slightly grainy.

Heat oil and clarified butter and put in the whole spices. Add in the boiled onion paste and saute followed by the tomato-cashew paste. Saute till the oil separates. Add in the spices and salt and the water of the boiled onions. Bring the curry to a boil and add in the cubed fresh paneer/cottage cheese. Cook till the paneer absorbs the flavors & the gravy thickens suitably.

Serve hot the delectable preparation  with  Naan/Poori/ Jeera rice.

Sending this recipe to JFI:Paneer hosted by cardamom and is the brainchild of Indira of Mahanandi.