Think Cheese, Think Peas, Think CHEESY PEAS!

I bet when you were thinking cheese you weren't thinking Indian Paneer cheese. Well I was.

The other day I was lucky enough to be given some fabulous home-made paneer so I took it home and used one of my recipe books to make a Mutter Paneer - a paneer and pea curry. Waay too much turmeric and not nearly enough tomato for my liking, so today, I made a better one. My version uses lots of tomato of course, and whole seeds ground in a mortar and pestle (hard cassia bark first) but use powdered spices if you haven't got anything to grind with. I suggest you DO make your own paneer - it's not only a million times better that the packet stuff but is cheaper too (only $2 something for 2 litres of milk these days). It's also very easy to make - all you need is a little time ahead - about half an hour to drain and about an hour to let it firm in the fridge.




For the paneer:
2 litres of full-cream milk
1/3 cup / (80ml) lemon juice (or vinegar if you don't have any lemons)

In a large saucepan, bring the milk to the boil, stir in the lemon juice and turn off the heat. Stir with a wooden spoon 1-2 minutes as it curdles (separating into pale yellow liquid - whey, and small white solids - curds) If it doesn't curdle within a minute or so, add some more lemon juice and keep stirring. Line a colander with a clean tea-towel (or muslin if you have it), pour all the contents of the pan in and run some cold water through it. Leave 10 - 30 minutes for the whey (the yellowy liquid part) to drain off. What remains is the curd. Wrap the towel around this and form into a block by patting with your hands. Put the wrapped block onto a plate and put a plate / wooden board or nice and heavy like a saucepan filled with water on top of it and leave in the fridge - the longer you leave it the better, but you can use it after 40 mins. Voila! - You've made paneer!



For the curry paste:
2 onions, chopped
6-8 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 t fresh ginger, grated
2 pieces of cassia bark (or cinnamon quills or 1-2 t cinnamon powder)
1 t cumin seeds
1 t fennel seeds
1 t coriander seeds
1 t cardamom seeds (lightly crush about 6 green cardamom pods and scrape out seeds)
4 whole cloves
3 dried red chillies / 1 t chilli flakes
1 t paprika

Either place everything in a spice grinder and grind till smooth or do it the work-out way using a mortar and pestle.



Rest of the ingredients:
800g pureed tomatoes (use a blender or food processor and whizz)
500g frozen peas (covered with boiling water and left in covered bowl to soften)
2 T vegetable oil
1-2 t garam masala
1/4 t ground turmeric
1-4 T cream / 6 T milk
fresh coriander leaves to garnish.

When you're ready to start putting the dish together, get the paneer out of the fridge, unwrap and cut into 2cm cubes. Now, most recipes ask you to fry the cubes of paneer but I prefer to leave them as is. If you want to fry them first, take a big heavy based saucepan and fill 1/3 full of oil and heat till 180 degrees (or until a cube of bread browns in 15 seconds). Cook the paneer in batches for 2 min per batch, or until golden. Drain on paper towels.

Heat the 2 T oil in a large saucepan, add the curry paste and cook over medium heat for 4 minutes, or until fragrant. Add the pureed tomato, powdered spices and bring to the boil. Simmer for 5 minutes. Stir in the cream then add the peas and paneer and cook a further 3 minutes. Garnish with coriander leaves and serve hot with rice and / or wholemeal paratha.

Serves 6. Can be frozen.