Cheesy peas aka muttar paneer

 
I may be biased, but I have never come across a muttar paneer in restaurants that I like more than mine. There are of course other paneer recipes that I do enjoy; in particular, I had a very good paneer dish at the Silk restaurant in the Courthouse Hotel, twice.
The menu can be found at http://www.courthouse-hotel.com/bars/silk.html and I always order the karahi paneer from my local Indian take away http://yakyeti.co.uk/.
 

So, this is one of my personal essentials for any Indian thali I might produce. Unfortunately, unlike a lot of Indian food, this is not one for the vegans.

I also treat the paneer differently to how it is usually treated in curry. I do not understand the concept of frying cheese. It’s wrong. Adding fat to something that already has a high fat content. Really? Anyway, I grill mine.

What you will need
1 packet of paneer
1 onion
2-3 cloved of garlic
1 thumbsized piece of ginger
3-4 fresh green chillis (optional)
2 tea spoons ground cumin
2 tea spoons ground coriander
½ teaspoon of garam masala
½ tea spoon turmeric
1 teaspoon of chilli powder
1 tin of tomatoes
1 table spoon tomato puree
1/2 tea spoon of tamarind concentrate
Frozen peas (or fresh)

Firstly, cube your paneer. I tend to get about 5 slices lengthways to cube. I then put these in a roasting tin and place under the grill on a medium heat to lightly toast/brown. You’ll need to turn the little fellas, but it’s not necessary to ensure all sides are toasted.

Whilst this happening, chop the onion, garlic and ginger and sauté in a tablespoon of oil until browned and softened. Add heaped tea spoons of the cumin and coriander, as well as the turmeric, garam masala and chilli powder. Cook these off for just a minute then add the tinned tomatoes, the same amount of water, salt and tomato puree.

Chop as many chillies as you like and add to the pan, along with the tamarind concentrate. You can use tamarind pulp, but you might need a bit more of it, alternatively you could add the juice of 1 lemon to provide the sourness.

Finally, add about two-three handfuls of green peas to the pan and cook on a low to medium heat for about 20 minutes. The sauce should reduce. Although if it reduces too much, just top up with a little more water.

Serve this with either rice or nan bread. My preference is always nan bread. Nope I did not make my own, but maybe I will another day and share that with you too. Also, you could make some rotlis. See the recipe here http://gipsytoast.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/rotlis.html.

Remember that curry is always better the second day as the spices have had longer to get to know each other. In Indian households, curry is made earlier in the day and then reheated for dinner, rather than eaten immediately.