Sag Paneer

Heidi's recipe for Sag Paneer from Near & Far. Homemade paneer really makes this dish shine.

One of my favorite Indian dishes is sag paneer. Unfortunately, finding a deliciously satisfying version, either in recipe form or at a local restaurant, is quite a challenge. That is until I made Heidi's Sag Paneer. The recipe calls for homemade paneer, loads of fresh spinach, a bit of onion, a few spices, and a good squeeze of lemon. The paneer is totally worth the bit of effort it requires and a hand blender makes whizzing the spinach into a chopped state a breeze. 

After only a few minutes of sauteing and stirring it all comes together. As I put the finishing touches on mine and took a taste, I pronounced "This is how I always imagined it could be!" and waltzed, spoon in hand, around my husband in the kitchen. Bright, earthy, warming, a touch spicy and yes, actually green. The paneer tastes like fresh delicious cheese and oh it is a glorious moment when you find there's a piece of it on your fork! The toasted cumin seeds, enshrouded in the gnarly gorgeous sludge of spinach and onion, are reminders of how lucky you are to be eating this. And guess what... no grease pools! Heidi, being the beauty lover that she is, tops hers with chive blossoms. I hope to do that one day soon too, if I can ever find those precious purple pom poms. But until then I'm reminded to always be hopeful and to keep seeking. Those bright, delicious, satisfying recipes are out there!  

SAG PANEER

— from Near and Far: Recipes Inspired by Home and Travel by Heidi Swanson (Ten Speed Press, 2015)

Makes about 3 cups

INGREDIENTS

• 3 tablespoons sunflower oil or ghee
• 1 1/2 pounds baby spinach, well washed
• 1 teaspoon whole cumin seeds
• 1 teaspoon fine-grain sea salt
• 1 scant teaspoon red chili flakes
• 4 medium cloves garlic, smashed
• 2 small white onions, minced
• 2 teaspoons garam masala
• 1/2 cup buttermilk
• Lots of fresh lemon juice
• 6 oz fresh paneer
• Chives or chive blossoms, to serve (optional)

METHOD

Place 1 tablespoon of the oil in a large pot over medium heat-high heat. When hot, add the spinach and stir until it begins to collapse. You may need to add it in tow or three additions, but get all the spinach in the pot as quickly as you can. Once it has collapsed, but is still bright, a couple of minutes, remove from heat, drain, and blend to a puree with a hand blender. Set aside.

Give the pot you cooked the spinach in a quick rinse, and the place it over medium-high heat with the remaining 2 tablespoons of oil. Add the cumin seeds, salt, red pepper flakes, garlic and onions. Cook until the onion is translucent, a couple of minutes. Stir in the garam masala, dial back the heat, and stir in the spinach. Gradually stir in the buttermilk and bring to a simmer. Stir in a couple of big squeezes of lemon juice. Taste and adjust the seasoning, fold in the paneer (or sprinkle it on top), and finish with a sprinkling of chives or chive blossoms.

Notes from Leslie

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Detours are delicious

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Fresh paneer made from 1 gallon of milk. Half of this is what is needed for the Sag Paneer recipe in Near & Far. The other half's fate is up to you, you lucky dog.

Setting out to cook my first recipe from Near & Far, Sag Paneer, I inadvertently met a real mind bender. Fresh, homemade PANEER. You know, paneer. The elusive ingredient you've always seen on the menu at your local Indian restaurant but never seen in any grocery store. They say it's cheese, but it looks like raw tofu and tastes like nothing. It's more likely a structural support so the saggy paneer you ordered doesn't appear to be a pile of 100% overcooked spinach, cause who would order that again? Well, turns out fresh paneer is SIMPLE to make and it's fluffy unfussy warm dairy nuggets (aka curds) taste so good that when you turn those steamy gems out of the pot you feel you are a famous chef.  Yeah, I just made that.

So Heidi's Sag Paneer recipe, the completion of which was my goal for the evening, sent me on a detour to the back of the book. Here were the instructions for making PANEER.  I say instructions because something this simple probably doesn't qualify as a recipe. As with any dish that has only 3 ingredients, Quality is Queen. I heated my gallon of organic pasteurized (not ultra-pasteurized) Straus whole milk + 1/2 pint of the same whipping cream in a pot until it almost boiled. Turned off the heat and added 1/2 cup of fresh lemon juice. Within 10-20 seconds stealthy white coagulating lumps began to congregate at the surface in rapid succession. Woah! Was it happening? Just like that? Where were the problems? I was so ready to spend 30 minutes Googling "paneer problems" but here I was, already scooping out curds and stirring in the salt. That was easy. I had to taste. Prepared for a faceful of stale waxy cardboard flavor I was hit with De. Li. Cious. It's possible I wanted to spend the rest of the evening nibbling that mountain of fluffy springy goodness. I may have fantasized about it. BUT I tumbled and chased and wrangled those beauties into a Pyrex dish as instructed, put a sheet of parchment paper over the top, and weighted down the mess with a flat heavy object. So sorry to do that to you little lovers. We'll meet again.

After some time in the fridge I turned the chilled pressed paneer out onto a cutting board. Very similar to feta. Firm but not hard. Solid but riddled with vacant nooks and crannys. This was giving me A LOT of ideas. Pan fried with capers... Haloumi... Goat or sheep milk in place of the ubiquitous cow... What about a brine... More salt... More lemon... More fun! These are adventures I want to go on -- in the very PA-NEAR future folks.