Saag paneer, a delicious Indian spinach curry

Saag paneer, or in Bengali Palak Saag (spinach) paneer is an easy to make vegetarian dish. Every household has it's own recipe for it. Here's mine.

homemade paneer (see former recipe)
frozen spinach
a chopped onion
2 chopped tomatoes
teaspoon of ginger- and garlic paste
tablespoon of ghee (clarified butter) or olive oil
Jeera (cumin powder)
Dhone (coriander powder)
Holud (turmeric)
Salt to taste

Start by frying of the paneer which have been cut into cubes of about 1 cm. When golden brown leave to drain on some kitchen paper. Put aside till used.
Heat the ghee or olive oil in a pan and add the garlic- and ginger paste and the onion. Fry till the onion is softened and is glossy. Then add the spices (dhone, jeera and holud) all to taste. Put the chopped tomatoes and their juice in the pan and fry of on a medium heat. If the mixture might stick to the bottom, add a bit of water to it, to prevent it from burning and giving a bitter taste to the dish. Now add the frozen spinach. Stir occasionally until the spinach is all melted in the curry and heated trough. Taste and if needed adjust the spices and add salt. Just before serving add the fryed paneer to the dish and stir gently so all the cubes of paneer are covered in the palak saag.

For a more spicy version of this paneer dish you can add some finely chopped fresh red peppers or some dried chili flakes.

Serve with steamed basmati rice. roti  or parata.

How to make paneer, Indian cheese, from scratch.

When I was a kid my mum used to make chana or paneer all the time. She would make the paneer herself and the whole house would smell like vinegar. I used to be disgusted by that and then would refuse to eat that paneer, cause it reminded me of that grubby smell.

But... I have found a way to make this very young type of cottage cheese without the nasty smells hanging in the kitchen !

Paneer, chana or cottage cheese is an integral part of Indian cooking. It's a versatile dairy product, which is used in desserts, snacks or for main course cooking. In India it is known by various names like in Hindi - panir
or  Bengali - Chana.

2 liters of full fat milk
2 tb of vinegar or lemon juice
muslin cloth or a fine thin cloth


1. Put 2 liters of full fat milk in a heavy bottomed vessel.

2. Let it come to a boil, now reduce the flame and add the 2 tb of vinegar (or lemon juice) to the to the boiling milk.







3. As soon as u add vinegar the milk will immediately split.

4. Cook this till the milk is all curdled and a pale yellow transparent fluid is left behind .(you can add more vinegar or lemon if required).
5. Keep on stiring occassionaly to avoid sticking of the milk at the bottom of the vessel. This will not take any longer than just 1-2 minutes all together.




6. Now strain the curdled milk (or actually this is the paneer) in a fine muslin cloth which you have put over and fine siff or colander to separate the water from the curdled milk.

7. Rinse the cheese with cold water to wash of excess vinegar or lemon juice.








8. Now wring the cloth up real tight so as much water as possible is drained. Get yourself a heavy pot filled with water and place this on top of the cloth with the paneer in it. By adding the pressure to the cheese it becomes all dry. The dryer the substance is, the better it can be processed. Leave this for at least 2 to 4 hours. even better would be overnight.

9. After a few hours take of the pot and open the cloth gently. The lump of white cheese is the actual paneer. This can be cut up to pieces to process into a curry (like saag paneer) or knead into a variety of Indian sweets (misti).

This paneer can now be processed into all different varities of curry's. You can choose to fry the pieces before processing, but you can also just cut it into cubes and add it to a korma.

A quick refreshing cucumber salad

If you want something as a side dish to accompany your main meal, but you don;t have much in that fridge left, try this cucumber salad with walnuts (optional of course) It's easy and quick to make, but can really pimp up a meal. And nobody needs to know it didn't take you much effort to make, right ?

a cucumber, skin on
some white balsamic vinegar or some walnut vinegar
honey to taste
dill, fresh would be best, otherwise dried
some chopped walnuts
some freshly ground pepper





Simply use your cheese slicer to slice the washed cucumber into thin slices. You can also use the foodprocessor to do this for you. Make a dressing by adding the honey,dill and freshly grounded pepper to the vinegar of your choice. Do experiment with the different types of vinegar available nowadays. Since I added walnuts, I used walnut vinegar in this case. But white balsamic vinegar is good to use too. Just try to find a perfect balance of sweet and sour by adding the honey to taste. Dress the cucumber with the dressing. Leave it for at least 15 minutes aside so the cucumber becomes "pickled" by the dressing. Meanwhile coarsly chop the walnut. Sprinkle the walnuts over the top of the cucumber salad.

Some y'know's:
- Did you know that dill is classic combination with cucumber, but also eggs and fish.
- Dill was used by Hippocrates as an application on burns suffered by soldiers in ancient Rome.
- The green dill leaves have a sweet aroma and taste. When dried, the dill seeds are similar in taste to
  caraway seeds, and have a sweet and citric type flavor but slightly buttery as well. Derived from the Norse
  word dilla; it means to lull. Thus, this herb is used to induce sleep and is a great insomnia reliever.

Some variation tips:

- add some freshly chopped or dried flaked chili instead of pepper to the dressing.
- add some celery (chopped into 0.2 cm slices) to the cucumber.
- instead of walnuts use pine nuts.