My friend, Shweta Galway, teaches us her family's go-to weeknight vegetarian Indian dish. Click at right for the story, recipe and how-to-photos.
Showing posts with label Indian Palak Paneer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Indian Palak Paneer. Show all posts
4.01.2014
The Story
When Cutting Corners,
Careful Not to Cut the Heart Out
By Lindsay Sterling
Indian food is one of my favorite
cuisines, but it can be the most complicated to cook. In my experience, it
tends to require 15 spices you don’t have, a lot of work, and extremely long
cooking times. The chicken biryani I wrote about her last year takes four hours to cook. That’s not saying it isn’t
worth it. It is worth it, especially for a party. But wouldn’t it be great to
know a relatively easy Indian dish that you could cook in less than an hour?
I asked my friend, Shweta Galway, from
Gujarat State in India, what she likes
to cook. Shweta said growing up in a Hindu family, her mom made
vegetarian Indian food every night. “Every day in my household there would be
rice, roti, vegetables, and dal.” Now a pharmacist and a mom of two young kids,
Shweta’s favorite dish to cook on a
weeknight is palak paneer and roti. Palak means spinach.
And paneer is the type of cheese that’s mixed into it. Paneer is fresh
and mild, like cottage cheese, ricotta, or farmer’s cheese, but drier and
pressed into a block.
There
are many longer, more complicated versions of palak paneer than hers, but Shweta
has found her method to be fast, tasty and achievable on a weeknight. One
corner-cutting trick Shweta learned from her sister-in-law is to use frozen
creamed spinach as an ingredient. Then all you have to do is sauté onions and
garlic in olive oil in a large sauté pan, and add the creamed spinach, frozen
chopped spinach, spices, and cheese.
And
she doesn’t make a custom blend of a lot of different spices. She has faith in
the contents of the garam masala in her cabinet. She used Patel Brother’s brand,
which is a blend of coriander, red chili, cumin, clove, star anise, mace,
fennel seeds, black pepper, bay leaves, cinnamon, dry mango, salt, and clove
leaves. She adds two teaspoons of this to the spinach and lets that be that.
Her dish, also known as saag paneer, was kid friendly. You could add
more spice if you like more intensity.
Roti is a type of flatbread made out of Indian atta
flour, which is a light yellow flour made out of the durum variety of wheat.
According to Wikipedia, atta includes the endosperm and bran of the wheat
grain, but not the germ. After mixing water into the flour and a little bit of
olive oil, Shweta kneads the dough for five minutes until it’s smooth and
doesn’t break when stretched. She rolls out little pieces into very thin discs
with a tool that looks like a drummer’s drumstick. Shweta’s rotis were each as
perfect as a full moon. Mine looked like cartoons of Maine islands. Shweta
recalled getting a lot of practice when she was a young girl. “I used to
get made fun of when I was little. People would say, ‘Oh look, yours has a
nose!’‘Yours look like India.’ It was fun.”
She cooks the discs of dough on a hot, dry pan and then on an open flame until toasty
spots appear.
To
eat palak paneer, you tear off a piece of roti and use it to scoop up spinach
and cheese. Then you eat the whole bite of spinach and bread together. Earthy, hot,
creamy and delicious, Shweta’s spinach and flatbread cut out the fuss while keeping
the homemade heart.
Click at right for the recipe, how-to photos, and live cooking
class info.
The Recipe
Indian Spinach and Flatbread
palak paneer and roti
As Shweta Galway from Umreth, Gujarat State, India, taught Lindsay Sterling in Freeport, Maine, 2014
Serves 6
Cooking time: 1 hr
3 cups atta flour*
6 Tbsp olive oil (separated)
8-10 oz. panner, sliced into 1/2 inch cubes*
(or 4 cups whole milk and 1 Tbsp lemon juice and cheese cloth)
1 large yellow onion, medium dice
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 boxes frozen creamed spinach, thawed
2 tsp garam masala powder*
1/2 tsp chili powder (optional)
2 pounds frozen chopped spinach
1/2 tsp salt
*Find these ingredients (atta flour, paneer and garam masala) at your local Indian supermarket. Click here to find Indian markets in your area. In Maine, I go to Masala Mahal, 798 Main St., South Portland, ME, 207-699-5555. Note: you can make your own paneer out of whole milk and lemon juice very easily. See below for recipe. You can also substitute whole milk ricotta. If you do, don't cook it or mix it in -- you don't want it to disappear. Just add dollups of it in the end.
Mix flour, 1 Tbsp olive oil, and 3/4 cup water with hands and knead for 3-5 minutes until a smooth dough forms, mixing in water slowly to bring the dough together. When dough is smooth and the sides of the bowl are completely clean, then form a ball and cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let sit for 30 minutes.
Fry paneer pieces in 1 Tbsp oil on medium heat in saute pan until golden and dry on paper towels. If using ricotta, do not cook now. Simply add spoonfulls to the final heated spinach dish. The idea is to have chunks of cheese, not cheese mixed in.
Add another Tbsp oil to pan and fry onions and garlic until soft. Mix in creamed and chopped spinach. Mix in garam masala, chili powder, and salt. Add paneer and let sit with the heat off while finishing making the flatbread. (If using whole ricotta just top the spinach with it but don't mix it in. It's nice to have the chunks of cheese stay in tact as opposed to mixed in.)
Heat a dry iron skillet or frying pan on high heat on the stovetop. Pull off a piece of the dough and form into a ball about the diameter of a quarter. Press the ball between the palms of your hands repeatedly so the dough turns into the shape of a smooth, round river stone. (To get the hand position Shweta did, put the four fingers of one hand in between the thumb and pointer finger of the other hand and the dough in between your palms. Wrap fingers around the backs of the hands. Squeeze hands together tightly. Rotate dough in hands and squeeze again, repeating three or four times to get the smoothest, roundest shape possible. (The more circular the shape is that you start with, the better odds you have of rolling it out into a perfect circle).
Roll dough into as perfect a circle shape as you can (it takes practice, but no matter what the shape, it always tastes good!), about 1/8th inch thick. Put roti on hot pan 1 minute on each side until the color gets lighter. Then use tongs to hold it directly over high gas flame (if you have gas, if not, just keep it on the pan). The roti if you're lucky will puff up like a pufferfish. Before it burns, turn to other side. Stack roti on serving platter. Continue making more roti until you've finished all the dough. Cover with a towel to keep warm, (or keep warm in a rice cooker until serving). Eat palak paneer by breaking off pieces of roti and scooping up a bite of spinach and cheese.
Homemade Paneer
makes: 12 oz.
cooking time: 30 min
8 cups whole milk
juice of 1 lemon
cheese cloth
Bring 8 cups of milk to a boil. Mix in lemon juice until curds and whey separate. Put a strainer inside a pot and line strainer with 2 layers of cheese cloth, covering the bottom and sides of the strainer and overlapping its edge. Pour curds and whey into the middle of the cheese cloth. Gather the edges of cheese cloth together around the curds and gather the edges of the cheese cloth above them so that now you have essentially a little sac of curds. Twist the sac round with some tongs (it'll be too hot to touch) forcing liquid out of the cheese cloth. Keep twisting until the curds get squeezed tighter and tighter and no more liquid comes out. You may leave it sit in the strainer for a couple minutes until it cools to the touch so you can use your hands to keep twisting to make sure you get all the liquid out. Then put the cheese still in its sac between two plates, and top the plates with cans of food or any other weight so that the cheese presses into a flat shape instead of a round one. Put the cheese between plates with the weights on top in the fridge for at least 20 minutes.
Copyright Lindsay Sterling 2014
palak paneer and roti
As Shweta Galway from Umreth, Gujarat State, India, taught Lindsay Sterling in Freeport, Maine, 2014
Serves 6
Cooking time: 1 hr
3 cups atta flour*
6 Tbsp olive oil (separated)
8-10 oz. panner, sliced into 1/2 inch cubes*
(or 4 cups whole milk and 1 Tbsp lemon juice and cheese cloth)
1 large yellow onion, medium dice
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 boxes frozen creamed spinach, thawed
2 tsp garam masala powder*
1/2 tsp chili powder (optional)
2 pounds frozen chopped spinach
1/2 tsp salt
*Find these ingredients (atta flour, paneer and garam masala) at your local Indian supermarket. Click here to find Indian markets in your area. In Maine, I go to Masala Mahal, 798 Main St., South Portland, ME, 207-699-5555. Note: you can make your own paneer out of whole milk and lemon juice very easily. See below for recipe. You can also substitute whole milk ricotta. If you do, don't cook it or mix it in -- you don't want it to disappear. Just add dollups of it in the end.
Mix flour, 1 Tbsp olive oil, and 3/4 cup water with hands and knead for 3-5 minutes until a smooth dough forms, mixing in water slowly to bring the dough together. When dough is smooth and the sides of the bowl are completely clean, then form a ball and cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let sit for 30 minutes.
Fry paneer pieces in 1 Tbsp oil on medium heat in saute pan until golden and dry on paper towels. If using ricotta, do not cook now. Simply add spoonfulls to the final heated spinach dish. The idea is to have chunks of cheese, not cheese mixed in.
Add another Tbsp oil to pan and fry onions and garlic until soft. Mix in creamed and chopped spinach. Mix in garam masala, chili powder, and salt. Add paneer and let sit with the heat off while finishing making the flatbread. (If using whole ricotta just top the spinach with it but don't mix it in. It's nice to have the chunks of cheese stay in tact as opposed to mixed in.)
Heat a dry iron skillet or frying pan on high heat on the stovetop. Pull off a piece of the dough and form into a ball about the diameter of a quarter. Press the ball between the palms of your hands repeatedly so the dough turns into the shape of a smooth, round river stone. (To get the hand position Shweta did, put the four fingers of one hand in between the thumb and pointer finger of the other hand and the dough in between your palms. Wrap fingers around the backs of the hands. Squeeze hands together tightly. Rotate dough in hands and squeeze again, repeating three or four times to get the smoothest, roundest shape possible. (The more circular the shape is that you start with, the better odds you have of rolling it out into a perfect circle).
Roll dough into as perfect a circle shape as you can (it takes practice, but no matter what the shape, it always tastes good!), about 1/8th inch thick. Put roti on hot pan 1 minute on each side until the color gets lighter. Then use tongs to hold it directly over high gas flame (if you have gas, if not, just keep it on the pan). The roti if you're lucky will puff up like a pufferfish. Before it burns, turn to other side. Stack roti on serving platter. Continue making more roti until you've finished all the dough. Cover with a towel to keep warm, (or keep warm in a rice cooker until serving). Eat palak paneer by breaking off pieces of roti and scooping up a bite of spinach and cheese.
Homemade Paneer
makes: 12 oz.
cooking time: 30 min
8 cups whole milk
juice of 1 lemon
cheese cloth
Bring 8 cups of milk to a boil. Mix in lemon juice until curds and whey separate. Put a strainer inside a pot and line strainer with 2 layers of cheese cloth, covering the bottom and sides of the strainer and overlapping its edge. Pour curds and whey into the middle of the cheese cloth. Gather the edges of cheese cloth together around the curds and gather the edges of the cheese cloth above them so that now you have essentially a little sac of curds. Twist the sac round with some tongs (it'll be too hot to touch) forcing liquid out of the cheese cloth. Keep twisting until the curds get squeezed tighter and tighter and no more liquid comes out. You may leave it sit in the strainer for a couple minutes until it cools to the touch so you can use your hands to keep twisting to make sure you get all the liquid out. Then put the cheese still in its sac between two plates, and top the plates with cans of food or any other weight so that the cheese presses into a flat shape instead of a round one. Put the cheese between plates with the weights on top in the fridge for at least 20 minutes.
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