Paneer Makhani
This is a fantastic Punjabi curry, and is very quick and easy to make! Once you've made it a couple of times, you can have it ready in about 30 mintues. If you've never tried cooking curries from scratch, this is quite a good place to start as you can't go too far wrong! I'm veggie so I use paneer, but you can use chicken if you're feeling meat-starved.

Ingredients:

1 block of paneer* cubed (or some chicken, however much you would normally use for a curry)
1 red onion - diced
1 chunk of ginger - minced (I go for about a 1 and a half inch cube sort of size - not sure how else to describe it...)
2-4 cloves of garlic - minced
500g creamed tomatoes
2 tsp kasturi methi (can be found in any good Asian supermarket)
2 bay leaves
2 tsp cumin seeds
2 cloves
1 tsp black mustard seeds
5 crushed cardamom pods
2 tsp coriander powder
1/2 tsp fenugreek seeds
2 tsp chilli powder (depending on how spicy you like it, personally I go with less as I like to taste the ginger and my chilli powder is bastard hot...)
2 tsp garam masala
1 tsp honey
1 tsp salt
125ml single cream
Butter
Oil

Heat equal amounts of oil and butter in a frying pan (I guess about 1 tablespoon of each ish). Gently fry the paneer until it is just starting to turn a little golden and then remove from the pan and dunk in a bowl of cold water and leave it there for now.

Heat some more oil and butter and add the clove, cumin seeds, fenugreek seeds, mustard seeds and bay leaves and toast for a while until the mustard seeds pop, the cumin starts to break up and the fenugreek seeds are a little golden. Add the onion, ginger and garlic and gently sautee until the onion starts to turn golden. Add the kasturi methi, cardamom, chilli, garam masala, and coriander, and keep stirring until you have a rich dark paste (if it all starts to stick, just chuck in a splash of water and keep stirring). Once you are happy with this, pour in the creamed tomato and add the salt and honey. Keep stirring and simmer for about 15 minutes. Add the cream and paneer, cover, and simmer for a further 5 minutes.

Eat, and enjoy!



*You can normally find paneer in supermarkets. Sainsbury's keep it in the cheese aisle under their 'recipe cheese' section. Alternatively, you can make your own!
( more balanced than jeremy beadle It wasn't me..., Sat 30 Jun 2012, 11:37, Reply)