I went to the first outdoor farmer’s market in St. Joseph today, and was quite proud of my garden. I bought asparagus (next year I’ll have my own), but the other fresh offerings were all things I have (except green onions): radishes, spinach, rhubarb, greens. I also bought pork chops and grass-fed ground beef and eggs, since we have new chickens on the farm that won’t be laying until the end of the summer.
A few days ago I made a great garden pizza. Homemade mozzarella, crust made using the whey, spinach and local mushrooms and frozen red garden peppers, the last of the garden tomato sauce. It’s a bit time-consuming (an hour) but very satisfying.
I put out a call on Facebook for other possibilities for spinach, since it looks like that will continue to be a mainstay of our garden diet for two more weeks. Right away there was a suggestion of Palak Paneer! What a great idea! Last night I tracked down a great recipe online, which I doctored a bit (coconut milk instead of cream because I had some leftover in the fridge, red peppers added, tomato paste with water instead of crushed tomatoes). I also didn’t have the time to make the fried cheese. I had some mozz left from the pizza and though, what the heck, it’s also made of just milk and citric acid… but it dissolved immediately into the dish. It did not, however, harm the taste!
It was amazing– quite flavorful and complex. Here is the recipe as I made it:
Palak Paneer
Prep & Cooking: 45minutes
Cuisine: North Indian
Ingredients:
paneer (cubed and lightly fried till brown in a tsp of ghee)
Big bunch of spinach blanched in hot water for 2 minutes and made into a paste in the food processor
1 ½-2 tbsp ghee (clarified butter)
1 1/2 tsp cumin seeds
2 onions finely chopped (I used the food processor to chop them and the chilis separately)
2 hot green peppers (I had serrano)
a few dried red/sweet peppers
1 Tbs fresh ginger and several cloves of garlic minced
1/2 tsp red pepper
1 Tbs coriander powder
2 Tbs tomato paste thinned with water (or two big tomatoes crushed)
1 cup water or less (use the water in which spinach was blanched)
salt to taste
1 tsp garam masala
1 Tbs coconut milk or cream
1 Add ghee in a heavy bottomed pot and add cumin seeds until they sputter. Add the onions and peppers and sauté until light brown.
2 Add ginger garlic paste and fry for 3 minutes. Add red pepper, coriander and cumin .
3 Add the tomato paste and let it cook for 5 minutes on medium heat. Add the spinach paste and let it cook further for another 5 minutes. (I did not do this step for this long.)
4 Add the fried paneer cubes and combine. Cook covered on low heat for 3 minutes. Add the spinach water and salt to keep things loose and simmer.
5 Add cream and garam masala, cover and cook for 2 minutes.
7 Serve hot with naan, white steamed rice or dal.
And here’s a photo of that great pizza…