Palek Paneer (पालक पनीर रेसिपी)

This is one of our favourite dishes at home. It started when we moved to Australia and found that restaurants here serve this a lot. As I grow up in Singapore, we are very familiar with South Indian food, but not North Indian food. Paneer cheese is a North Indian cheese.

When Daughter Who was a teenager, she swung from diet to diet. There times she wanted to be vegetarian, and this dish fits perfectly. She still loves palek paneer. If you switch the cheese out for lamb, we get another very popular dish: sagwala, another dish we love.

My version is pretty simple, and can be done in 30 minutes. The secret is not to boil the spinach with any lid, at any time, so that the leaves will never turn yellow. The second secret is to make sure you do not over boil or underboil the spinach.

The spinach should not be blanched more than a minute or two before it is blended. When mixing the blended spinach with the rest of the ingredients, like all curries, always wait for oil to exude from the curry before calling it done.

That’s all there is to Saag Paneer or Palek Paneer. Not really difficult.