Paneer Butter Masala

                 Paneer butter masala is a delicious Punjabi dish made with Paneer/cottage cheese.It is one of the commonly found menu item in most of the restaurants. I used to think it is a tedious process to make until I learnt the recipe. It goes perfect with Jeera rice, peas pulao or even plain rice and even tastes great with butter nan,kuchas, rotis and phulkas.This recipe is cream based as the name suggests. Diet conscious people can replace fresh cream with milk and try this recipe. So here is the recipe of India's most popular Paneer gravy.

             

Ingredients:

Fresh Paneer Cubes - Few

Butter - 1/4 Stick

Onions - Finely chopped ***

Tomatoes - 2 (chopped and pureed)

Ginger Garlic Paste - 1 Tbsp

Bay Leaf - 1

Cardamom - 3 to 4

Cashews - 8 to 10

Cumin-Corriander Powder - 2 tbsp

Garam Masala - 1 Tbsp

Red Chilli Powder - 1 Tbsp

Turmeric - 1 Tbsp

Fresh Cream - 1 cup

Milk - 1/4 Cup

Generous Pinch of Kasuri methi

Salt to taste

Method :

1) Cube the Paneer and put in warm water to make them soft (You can skip this step if you Paneer is fresh ). Pierce them with fork like in the pic shown below. This is to ensure that the flavours of the gravy goes inside the Paneer.

2) Heat the kadai with butter and 1 tbsp of oil.

3) Put a bay leaf, few cardamon and saute till aroma comes. Then add onion and ginger garlic paste and saute till the raw smell goes.

4) Add the tomato Puree to till and saute till the colour changes to dark red.

5) To this add turmeric, cumin-corriander powder, red chilli powder and salt. Saute for 3 to 4 mins.


     

6) Add the ground cashew paste to this and saute till the raw taste of the cashew goes and blends with the spice powders added.

7) Now add milk and 1/2 of fresh cream and mix well. Once the gravy starts to boil slightly, add the panner cubes to this.

8) Add 1/4 cup of water and bring the gravy to boil so that the spices get infused into the paneer cubes.

   


9) Once the gravy thickens and reaches the required consistency, give a lavish sprinkle of Kasoori Methi to give the restaurant touch.

10) Garnish it with fresh cream and serve with nan, roti or rice.:)

Notes:

1) Instead of adding finely chopped onions , you can saute the slightly saute the onions ,ginger and garlic,make a paste of it and then add. Since I always use readymade ginger garlic paste I do it this way.

2) Wait till the Tomoto puree added turns to dark red. This is an important step for any tomato based recipe as this gives a nice colour to your dish. Other the raw smell of the tomato will spoil the taste of the dish .

3) Diet conscious people can add only milk and avoid cream and cashew paste and use cream only for garnishing(optional).

4) Do not skip adding crushed kasoori methi as it gives a very good flavour to your gravy. Adjust the spice and chilli powder to you taste as some may not prefer the gravy to be too sweet.