This recipe is dedicated to my nanny Rosy who taught me how to cook. Shes now old and does not keep well and yet invited me to her humble home in Pune and cooked lunch for me. Her food is out of the world and when we lived in HongKong everyone would come home to sample her cooking. She made “palak paneer” which my son said was the best he ever tasted and i seconded him on that. I ofcoruse asked her for the recipe and she said she would explain it to me step by step. I was quite surprised there were no tomatoes in the recipe tho many say palak paneer does not contain any tomatoes but the recipes I have seen online all do. Anyways today i bring you a “special” recipe because its from a person whos very close to my heart. Rosy I love you very much…..
INGREDIENTS:
300 grams of spinach, washed and chopped
Paneer made out of 2 litres of milk,
100 grams of sour natural yogurt /dahi
1 whole pod of garlic
1″ piece ginger
2-3 green chillies
1 cup of chopped fresh green coriander leaves
4 tablespoons of oil or butter or ghee, she used oil
1 tablespoon of lemon juice
salt to taste and a pinch of turmeric
Cream for garnish , i did not put nor did she… this is just for presentation
METHOD:
Boil a lot of water in a pan and add some salt to it. Once it comes to a boil add the spinach and switch off the heat. Cover the pan and let the spinach soften. Do not let it cook in the steam, just blanch it. Immediately put it in a colander and pour cold water over it. Squeeze out all the water and put the spinach in a blender ( i used my magic bullet) and puree it. Keep it aside.
Seperately innthe blender  add the yogurt, ginger , garlic , green chillies and make a paste.
Heat the oil and cook the yogurt paste till the oil separates and there is no raw fragrance. Once the yogurt sauce is cooked add the pureed spinach and mix well. Add salt, lemon juice , turmeric and taste and correct seasoning. Add your cubed paneer and cook for a few minutes covered. You can garnish it with a bit of cream before serving. This tastes amazing!

Here is the yogurt paste cooking

FOR THE CHICKEN VERSION:
Marinate some cubed chicken breast in salt and garam masala. Sautee it in a hot pan with some oil till its done and then add the spinach puree to it. Tastes amazing!!

Here is the chicken marinated and sauteeing

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My nanny Rosy

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NITU DIDI TIP:
This puree can be made in quantity and frozen in small containers. You can use this to make any vegetable, tofu, meat balls (koftas) and even lamb. This is an excellent source of iron and vitamin C. When you blanch the spinach all the vitamins are retained and so is the color.