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How to Make Palak Paneer

Cooking the Spinach and Finishing Palak Paneer

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Edward Hamann
Sur la Table
http://surlatable.turnstilesystems.com/  
(703) 414-3580

Edward Hamann grew up in California and credits his grandmother for his early love of cooking as well as the abundance of fresh local produce found in the region. Inspired by the regional cuisines of India during his teenage years, Hamann later found himself traveling extensively throughout India collecting local recipes wherever he could and learning tips and techniques from street vendors, housewives and restaurant chefs.

He studied beside Julie Sahni at The Julie Sahni School of Indian Cooking in NYC and worked closely with Chef Sahni on a variety of events, including some for National Geographic Traveler, and has been teaching others to cook for over ten years.

Hamann’s international travels have greatly influenced him in his culinary pursuits and have given him deep appreciation for the plethora of spices that are available to the home cook but not widely understood or utilized. Through his instruction Hamann hopes to demystify cooking with spices and open up the cuisines of other cultures, such as Mexican, Persian and Afghani, to his students. As Hamann states “Cooking can be a different kind of journey, by preparing the foods of other countries in our own homes we can taste the memories of trips we may have taken or perhaps taste the dreams of trips we hope to take someday.”

Edward Hamann is currently Culinary Coordinator for Sur La Table Cooking School and is responsible for managing the cooking class program, recipe development, setting curriculum and teaching classes in Sur La Table’s Pentagon Row store (1101 South Joyce Street) in Arlington, Virginia.

Cooking the Spinach and Finishing Palak Paneer

This video will show how to make palak paneer, an Indian dish featuring delicious cheese and spinach.

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Indian

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Food

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Cheese

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Tradition

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Vegetarian

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Dish

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Curd

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Whey

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Spinach

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Cooking the Spinach and Finishing Palak Paneer

Ingredients

2 pounds fresh spinach, trimmed, washed and coarsely chopped

3 to 4 tablespoons ghee or oil or a combination

8 ounces store-bought Paneer or 1 recipe homemade Paneer, cut into 1-inch chunks

1 medium onion, finely chopped

1 tablespoon peeled, minced fresh ginger

2 teaspoons minced garlic

2 teaspoons minced fresh hot green chilies, or as desired

1 teaspoon ground coriander

1/4 teaspoon ground turmeric

1 teaspoon kosher salt, or to taste

3 to 4 tablespoons heavy cream or sour cream, optional

½ teaspoon garam masala, plus more for garnish

Instructions

1. Heat 1 tablespoon of the ghee or oil in a nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. When hot, add the paneer pieces and cook, gently turning and tossing, until light golden on all sides, about 2 minutes. This may be done in 2 batches if necessary adding a little more oil for the second batch if needed. Remove the cheese with a slotted spoon to a plate and set aside.

 

2. Transfer the ghee or oil left in the pan along with the remaining ghee or oil to a 4 to 5 quart Dutch oven and place over medium-high heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring often, until light golden, about 5 minutes. Add the ginger, garlic, and green chilies and cook, stirring, for 3 minutes more or until the seasonings are fragrant and looked fried. Stir in the ground coriander and turmeric. Pack in the spinach. Reduce the heat to medium-low and cook, covered, for 10 minutes. Uncover and stir the spinach mixture well. Cover again and cook for 8 to 10 minutes.

 

3. Uncover and stir in the salt, fried paneer, the optional cream or sour cream, and the garam masala. Cover and cook very gently for 5 minutes more. Taste and adjust seasoning, if necessary. Transfer to a serving dish and sprinkle with a little garam masala.

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Transcripts

Edward Hammond: Hello! I'm Edward Hammond and I'm here today at Sur La Table cooking school in Arlington, Virginia. Today we're making Palak Paneer, fresh Indian cheese with spinach.

Now we're going to fry our onions, garlic, ginger, chilies and spices and cook our spinach. We'll begin by heating our remaining ghee and a heavy deep saut pan or a Dutch oven would do nicely. We're using medium-high heat. When the ghee is hot, we'll add our onions. We're going to cook these, stirring often until they're light golden brown, about 6-8 minutes.

So now our onions are light golden brown. They're a little bit uneven in how they've browned and that's perfectly okay, just add to a complex flavor of the dish and now we're going to add our ginger and the garlic and hot green chilies. Those need to be served and fried for just a couple of minutes until they smell a little bit fried and the garlic and ginger will also pick up a little bit of golden color.

Our garlic and ginger and chilies have been fried and now we're going to add our ground spices. These just need to be stirred briefly, 30 seconds of so, just to lightly cooking them. Now we can add our spinach. Add it to the pan and just pack it all in there. It may seem like an awful lot at first, but spinach shrinks quite a bit once it's cooked.

And once thats in there we can give a little shake to the pan and then we're going to put a lid on and we're going to lower the heat and we're going to let it gently cook for about 8-10 minutes. So now we're going to take up the lid and we're going to give it a stir and we're going to put the lid back on and let it cook for about another ten minutes.

Our spinach is cooked for another ten minutes. So now we can take up the lid and we're now going to add our salt and our fried paneer cheese cubes and a little bit of our homemade spice blends, Garam Masala. I usually add about one teaspoon of kosher salt. Salt is as always a matter of taste and you can add as little or as much as you like.

Then now I'm going to add just a few tablespoons of heavy cream. You could also use sour cream, the cream in any case is optional, it just depends on how rich of a dish that you want. We'll fold all of that in and we will put a lid on it and let it cook for a few more minutes.

Our spinach and paneer cheese cooked for the last five minutes or so and now we can place it into a serving dish. The spinach is nice and tender, but not overcooked. I place it into a nice dish and now we can garnish it with a little bit of our Garam Masala spice blend over the top and you can dress a little bit of fresh heavy cream right at the end and you can even put some very thinly sliced hot green chilies on top as well.

This dish is traditionally served with Indian flat bread, such as Chapati, Paratha or Naan, but it's also equally good with warm French baguettes. Enjoy!

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