Spicy and Creamy Kadai Paneer

Photo: Sridevi Pasumarthi

Ingredients

2 pounds Paneer/ Indian Cottage cheese

3 large ripe tomatoes

4 large green capsicums

4 large red onions

3 tablespoons large Kasoori Methi (dry fenugreek)

2 tablespoons Haldi/tumeric

3 tablespoons red chili powder

1/2 cup ketchup/tomato paste

3 tablespoons ginger garlic paste

1 tablespoon amchur powder (dry mango powder)

2 tablespoons garam masala/cumin powder

Salt according to taste

1/2 cup of milk

cup About ½ of oil

2 drop of red edible food coloring (totally optional)

Preparation

Process

Finely slice onion vertically.

Slit tomatoes on the head like a cross with knife and drop it in a pan with hot boiling water, allow tomatoes to be cooked for about 2 minutes. Remove from heat, as you can see below it get very easy to peel the skin off. Peel the skin off and puree tomatoes and keep aside.

Now deseed capsicum and cut into cubes about an inch long, in a pan add about 5 tbsp of oil, allow it to get hot and then add capsicum and saute till capsicum softens. This saves time as you can get started parallel with sauteing onions.

Allow paneer to be at room temperature, this makes it easy to cut into the thick log like texture. Cut paneer into cubes of about an inch. People usually shallow fry paneer and then add it to the curry, I however just add them as is.

Now take a large pan and heat it up , add 1/2 cup of oil.When oil turn hot add

Kasoori methi, haldi(tumeric),red chilipowder and ginger and garlic paste and saute for a minute till the above emits a strong flavor.

Now add onions and saute till onions turn brown.

Add capsicum that was saute earlier.

Add paneer and mix all the ingredients , add salt, amchur, masala of your choice, ketchup and about a glass of water.

Allow to cook covered for about 6-8 minutes, checking in between.

Add milk and check for salt and adjust accordingly.

Cook on simmer for about another 5 minutes, now if you want to get the restaurant kind of look add few drops of edible red food coloring and mix it well.

Garnish with coriander and serve.