Palak Paneer Recipe
Author:
Thomas Sixt is a chef, food photographer, cookbook author and blogger.
Here he shares recipes, answers cooking questions and helps with cooking.
My original Palak Paneer recipe is presented in this post. Healthy vegetarian cuisine, the classic on every menu in the Indian restaurant once cooked by yourself.
We love Indian food and my wife is crazy about spinach with cheese. The spices and fragrances of the dishes sweep me away every time, even as a cook. No other regional cuisine offers this variety.
The name is composed of the parts “Palak” = Hindi for spinach and “Paneer” = Indian cream cheese.
For me, green spinach is important on the plate, gray cooked I do not like this dish.
Here I show you step by step a quick and easy preparation that will put a smile on your face. Have fun in the kitchen and enjoy!
Table of Contents
1. Palak Paneer Recipe
I present my step-by-step instructions plus video for the perfect spinach dish to get you started. Tips for completing your Indian cuisine I’ll give you the recipe afterwards.
By the way, you can send me a cooking question directly via the comment function!
Palak Paneer
Cooked, photographed and written down by chef Thomas Sixt.
Simple guide for the preparation of Palak Paneer.
Ingredients
| Spinach (Palak) | ||
| 500 | g | leaf spinach fresh (I cook here with young spinach) |
| 3 | pinches | Salt |
| 300 | ml | Water |
| Sauce with spices | ||
| 3 | tbs | Sunflower oil |
| 1-2 | pc | chili peppers |
| 2 | pc | fresh garlic cloves |
| 1 | pc | onion |
| 3 | pc | tomatoes (small-medium) |
| 80 | ml | Water |
| 1-2 | tsp | brown sugar |
| 1/2 | tsp | Caraway |
| 4 | pc | cloves |
| 1 | tsp | Ginger (fine diced or grated) |
| 1 | bar | cinnamon |
| 1-2 | tsp | Garam Masala |
| 1/2 | tsp | fenugreek (optional) |
| 1/2 | tsp | cardamon (optional) |
| 2 | tbs | butter |
| Paneer (Frischkäse) | ||
| 200 | g | Paneer (I use paneer from the Asia Shop) |
| Rice | ||
| 200 | g | Basmati rice (or jasmine rice) |
| 350-400 | ml | Water |
| 1 | tsp | Salt |
| Decoration | ||
| 1 | tsp | edible dried flowers |
| 1 | tbs | Cashewkerne (I roast in the pan beforehand) |
| Supplements | ||
| 6 | pc | papadam (I fry ready-made papadams in oil) |
| 200 | g | raita (see tip 3, is selfmade) |
| 2 | glas | spiced tea (I supplement with fresh whole milk) |
Instruction
Preparations
Prepare Ingredients
The ingredients at a glance: Spinach, paneer, onion, garlic, ginger, butter, oil, cashew and spices.
Toast cashews
Toast the cashews in a pan with a little oil.
Cut garlic
Cut the garlic into fine cubes. Please do not press garlic – pressed garlic tends to taste bitter.
Dice aromats
Dice the onion and ginger very finely.
Prepare Chili
Halve the chilli peppers.
Cut Cheese
Cut the cheese into approx. 1 cm cubes.
Cheese aside
Put the cheese aside.
It is added to the hot sauce with spinach at the end.
Prepare rice
Prepare rice
We prepare our rice in advance in parallel.
I use a rice cooker here.
This needs 1 part rice and 1.5 parts water.
In the pot you need 1 part rice and 2 parts water!
Don’t forget the salt for seasoning.
Prepare spinach
Clean spinach
Clean the fresh young spinach.
Cook Spinach
Cook the spinach briefly for 2-3 minutes.
Cold spinach
Drain the cooked spinach and rinse briefly with very cold water.
This keeps the spinach green.
Prepare sauce
Roast spices
Heat the cloves, cumin and cinnamon with the oil in a pan or wok.
Add aromates
Add the chilli, onion, garlic and ginger and fry. Add more spices such as garam masala, sugar and salt.
Prepare tomatoes
Prepare the tomatoes and cut them into small pieces.
Add tomatoes
Add the tomato pieces to the pan.
Add water
Add a little water and heat.
Cook sauce
After a good 7 minutes of boiling down, our sauce base is ready.
Please fish out the cloves and cinnamon stick!
Bringing cheese and spinach together
Mix spinach
Finely puree our wonderfully bright green cooked spinach.
Season sauce
Add the butter to the sauce base.
Add cheese
Add cheese cubes so that they also heat up.
Add spinach
Then add the pureed spinach and stir everything together with a wooden spoon.
When all the ingredients are hot enough, remove the pan or wok from the heat.
Dressing
Serve
Serve the palak paneer with roasted cashew nuts.
Garnish the rice with dried edible flowers.
Prepare raita with yoghurt, cucumber, mint and coriander and serve.
Enjoy with fried papadam and spiced tea!
Video
I would like to briefly consider the roasting of the spices here. Roasting the spices is very important for the authentic taste. A highly heated wok always tends to be very hot, so please be careful! You definitely want to create roasted aromas, which you can then deglaze with tomatoes. You can let the spices steep in the sauce for a good 20 minutes so that the wonderful aromas can develop. Good luck!
Cousine
2. Tip 1: Fine Spinach and Indian Spice Cuisine come separately to the Wedding
2.1 Spinach preparation
- fresh young spinach
- water
- salt
2.2 Sauce
- fresh young garlic
- onion
- tomato
- ginger
- fresh chilli peppers
- oil
- a little sugar and salt
- cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, cumin, garam masala, fenugreek
After a short cooking time, puree the spinach with a hand blender and then add to the finished sauce preparation to mix.
Please prepare the spinach and sauce separately at first. After pureeing the spinach, the royal children only come together.
Chef Thomas Sixt on Prince Spinach and Princess Sauce
3. Tip 2: Buy paneer or make it yourself?
This beautiful dish is made with Indian cream cheese. You can find it in the refrigerated section of the Asia Shop. This is how I made it.
But if you don’t have a shop that sells them, you can make your own paneer in three to four hours. It goes like this:
- Prepare 2 litres of fresh whole milk and 2 lemons.
- Boil the milk with a pinch of salt. Squeeze the lemons.
- Prepare a deep bowl with a sieve. Place a fresh kitchen towel in the sieve.
- Take the boiled milk off the heat and add the lemon juice while stirring.
- When the milk has become sufficiently fluffy and crumbly, pour the mixture through the kitchen towel and sieve so that the liquid drips out of the bottom into the bowl.
- Close the cloth at the top. Turn the cloth with the mixture out tightly and weigh the mixture down with a small pot or bowl.
- Let the liquid continue to squeeze out for about 2 hours.
- The mixture can then be placed in the refrigerator for about 1 hour to become even firmer.
Cut the paneer into approx. 1 cm cubes for the spinach. The cubes conveniently do not melt in the hot spinach and retain their wonderful shape.
4. Tip 3: Exciting supplements
Jasmine or basmati rice are suitable as a side dish. Instead of rice, naan, roti (both Indian flatbreads) or papadam (lentil flatbread) are also delicious.
I like to serve a refreshing raita with the papadam.
My Raita for your Indian experience works like this:
- Yoghurt
- Cucumber diced without seeds
- Fresh mint
- Fresh coriander
- A little lemon juice
- Pepper and salt
Spiced tea like masala chai with milk is a perfect accompaniment.
Now I am at the end of my Indian spinach story. I hope you enjoy trying it out and tasting it.
Namaste!
Says cook yogi Thomas Sixt
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Comments, Cooking Questions and Answers
Below you can write to me directly.
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