Palak paneer is spinach and nothing but spinach — and that is the first thing to get right, because the dish it is so often confused with, saag paneer, is a mix of winter greens and is largely an invention of restaurants abroad; you rarely meet it on a menu in India. The palak version belongs to the Punjabi dhaba and the home kitchen: spinach blanched hard and shocked in ice so it stays a deep, living green, blended to a gravy, then simmered with onion, ginger and garlic, cut with cream and a crush of kasuri methi, with cubes of paneer folded in at the close. Some cooks pull it closer to the highway dhaba with a dhungar — a lump of glowing charcoal rested in the pot under a lid to lay smoke over the greens. The recipe here comes by a properly found route: the food writer Dassana Amit set it down on Vegrecipesofindia from her father, who in turn had it from a Punjabi friend who ran a dhaba in the Mumbai suburbs — a place now closed, its restaurant-style palak built on onion rather than tomato and finished with that coal smoke.
INGREDIENTS
- 500 g fresh spinach (palak, washed, stems removed)
- 250 g paneer (cut into 2cm cubes)
- 3 tbsp ghee or butter
- 1 tsp cumin seeds
- 1 large onion (finely chopped)
- 1 tbsp ginger (grated)
- 1 tbsp garlic (crushed)
- 2 green chillies (chopped)
- 1 medium tomato (finely chopped (optional))
- 1 tsp Kashmiri red chilli powder
- ½ tsp garam masala
- 1 tbsp kasuri methi (dried fenugreek leaves, crushed)
- 80 ml double cream (plus a swirl to serve)
- 1 tsp salt (plus more to taste)
- 1 piece lump charcoal and a little ghee (optional, for the dhungar)
METHOD
- Bring a pan of water to the boil, drop in the spinach for no more than 2 minutes, then lift it straight into a bowl of iced water to set the colour.
- Drain the spinach and blend with the green chillies to a coarse purée, without adding water.
- If you like, sear the paneer cubes in a little ghee until pale gold, then rest them in warm water so they stay soft.
- Warm the ghee in a wide pan, add the cumin and let it sizzle, then fry the onion until soft and pale gold, 6–8 minutes.
- Add the ginger and garlic and cook for a minute, then stir in the tomato, if using, and cook until it breaks down.
- Stir in the Kashmiri chilli and a little salt, then add the spinach purée and simmer gently for just 4–5 minutes, so it holds its colour.
- Fold in the paneer, cream, garam masala and kasuri methi, and warm through for 2–3 minutes.
- For the dhaba smoke, rest a small steel bowl on the surface, drop in a glowing coal, spoon over a little ghee, cover for 2 minutes, then lift it out.
- Finish with a swirl of cream and serve with naan, roti or jeera rice.
