Mutter Paneer, anyone?

Although this is an over-abused dish and pretty much everyone know how to make it, I find myself using different recipes every time. No drastic changes, but just a little tinge of this over that. And we all know what a lot of difference that makes in cooking.

Last night, I tried another version of it and loved it. Thought I would write it down here for future reference. This is a jain mutter paneer dish -- no onions, no garlic :)

Things you'll need:

Tomatoes - 4, quartered and blanched

Peas - as much as you like

Paneer - as much as you like

Cloves - 5,6

Cinnamon - a stick

Red chillies - 2

Garam Masala - to taste

Jeera Powder - to taste

Milk - Boiled,1 cup

Almonds - 10

Salt and Sugar, to taste

What you need to do:

* Cut and blanch the tomatoes. I did this in the microwave for 2 minutes.

* Add the blanched tomatoes, cloves, cinnamon and red chilli, sugar and almonds to the mixer and grind to a smooth gravy

* Heat oil in a pan and add jeera to it. Once the jeera sizzles, pour the gravy in the pan.

* Add the peas, garam masala and jeera powder to the gravy

* Add salt, to taste

* Add the paneer to the gravy along with the boiled milk. Reduce the flame so that milk does not get curdled

* You can add more sugar at this point, depending on how you like it

* If the gravy is not thick, you can use some cornflour dissolved in milk to thicken it

Notes to myself:

The dish was tasty but spicier than I would have liked. Next time, I will use one red chilli instead of two.

There you go, the evergreen mutter paneer. I had it with hot phulkas :)