So it was a Monday again!!
Monday means no onion and garlic food for me. So I face this challenge every week as to what I should cook for Monday dinner. Paneer most of the times has come as a very handy and easy base recipe. Nutty Paneer Pasanda is one of such easy recipe and the taste was delicious enough to make my whole family finish it within minutes.
Nutty Paneer Pasanda is my recipe for Paneer Pasanda where I replaced cashews with peanuts. Reason was that I wanted to lower the calorie count and avoid too much richness which cashew gives to the dish.However I was little skeptical about the final outcome of Nutty Paneer Pasanda. But trust me peanuts just did the right job however one needs to be careful about the quantity otherwise it would overpower the dish. Infact adding little sugar just gave subtle sweetness to the dish which was much needed. Though I didn’t add Onion and garlic but if don’t have limitations like mine adding grated onions can add more taste to the dish.
For those wonder about the name Nutty Paneer Pasanda is because Peanuts not just give body to the dish about a coarse and nutty texture as well as flavor. So what are you waiting for let us get cooking.
- Paneer: 250 gms cut in cubes
- Ginger: 1 tbsp grated
- Tomato: 2 ripe pureed
- Coriander: 1 tbsp fine chopped
- Peanuts: 3 tbsp roasted and powdered
- Yoghurt: 4 tbsp whisked
- Turmeric Powder: ½ tsp
- Sugar: ½ tsp
- Cumin Powder: 1 tbsp
- Coriander powder: 1 tbsp
- Red Chilli powder: ½ tsp
- Cloves: 4
- Green Cardamon: 2
- Black Cardamom: 1
- Pepper Corns: 4
- Cinnamon: 1
- Cumin Seeds: 1 tsp
- Oil: 1 tbsp
- Heat oil in a wok and add cumin seeds till they start to splutter.
- Now add ginger and once it turns golden add tomato puree.
- Now cover the wok and let tomato puree cook for good 5 – 7 minutes till it becomes thick and the raw smell goes off.
- While tomato cooks add sugar and let it change the color of tomato too.
- Now mix turmeric, coriander, cumin powder and red chilli powder and cook till masala leaves the sides of the pan.
- At this stage mix the peanut powder which is little coarse and give it a good mix and let masala cook on slow flame for 2 minutes.
- In a mortar take all whole masalas like cardamons, cinnamon, pepper corn and cloves and powder it as much as you can.
- Now whisk the yoghurt till its smooth and add coriander leaves and ½ of the grounded masalas.
- Add the yoghurt mixture in the wok and mix it all together so that yoghurt doesn’t curdle.
- Now add Paneer pieces and let the whole masala cook with Paneer on slow, covered for 5 minutes post which add rest of grounded masala and serve hot with choiced bread.