Palak Paneer - a perfect sunday lunch!

Sundays are for relaxing and catching up with friends and family. Lately I've been socialising a bit too much and the odd-sunday at home is a refreshing change and more than welcome.

Sunday is synonymous with lazying around, eating a delicious home-cooked meal and catching a movie. I did just that!

After much debating, my cousin and I settled on Palak paneer and chapatis for our cook-it-yourself-sunday-lunch. As a cook in compulsion, chapatis weren't such a complex task (save for the snail's pace execution) but palak paneer was something I had been savouring for years, never paying attention to how it is prepared.

Nevertheless, I borrowed my aunty's recipe, fused it with mom's recipe and added the ingredients that were available at home! Read the recipe here-

INGREDIENTS:
(Serves two)

• One bundle palak
• Two green chillies
• 2 tablepoon cooking oil
• 10-15 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 250 grams paneer, cut into cubes
• Jeera for the tadka
• 1 finely chopped onion (optional)
• Salt to taste
• 2 teaspoon fresh cream (optional)

HOW TO:

1. Clean the palak by breaking off the hard stem and wash it twice or thrice to remove all the dirt.
2. Steam the palak for 4 minutes in a microwave cooker. Alternatively, you could boil water in a steel vessel, dip the cleaned palak in it till it gets cooked.
3. Once steamed, run cold water over the palak. This will held retain the nice green colour in the final preparation and not make it look blackish.
4. Grind the palak and green chillies with a little water to make a smooth paste.
5. Heat the oil. Add jeera and chopped garlic to the heating oil. Let it sizzle and cook until the garlic turns brownish.
6. Add onion and cook it until it turns golden brown.
7. Add the palak paste and give it oil boil.
8. Add water to bring the palak gravy to a nice consistency (remember the gravy will thicken slightly once it cooks)
9. Add salt as per taste and chilli powder if needed.
10. Add paneer cubes and give it one stir without breaking the paneer cubes.
11. Let it simmer on slow fire for 2-3 minutes.
12. Add fresh cream for a creamy look to the gravy.
13. Serve hot with chappatis or rice.
    
    

Once the palak paneer was almost ready, my cousin set the table while I made a small surprise salad!



I mixed boiled macaroni and steamed american corn with one spoon of Fun & Foods Pasta & Pizza Spread and good old Amul cheese spread. I finished up the one minute salad by adding salt and freshly ground pepper for taste.




The food turned out to be pretty good. The salad was a quick-fix and a rather taste one. The black grapes for dessert (my cousin's surprise) was a perfect end to a sumptuous home-cooked lunch on a lazy sunday afternoon, while the 'Hip-hop' movie 'You Got Served' kept us glued way past lunchtime.