This is one of my signature recipes which is liked by all my friends! My husband waits for an occasion to invite friends home and then asks me to make this one.. Yeah I don’t make it that often when it’s just the two of us cause of butter and cream quantity.

Paneer butter masala is Cottage cheese(paneer) cooked in blanched tomato gravy and spices with dried Fenugreek leaves (kasoori methi).. By the way skipping the dried fenugreek leaves is no-no!

In the original recipe, onions are not added so it makes a great dish for me when I have to do no-onion cooking. Adding onions helps in quantity and if the tomato is quite tangy it neutralizes.

Ingredients:

1 cup Paneer (Cottage cheese), cubed.

1 tbsp poppy seeds

10-12 cashew nuts

1 Onion, roughly chopped to big chunks (optional)

2 tomatoes, washed

1.5 cups of water

4 cloves of garlic (to taste)

1” ginger

2 green chillies

2-3 tbsp butter

¼ tsp turmeric

Chili Powder- to taste

Salt- to taste

1/2 tsp Sugar (For the sweet taste)

1 tsp Coriander powder

1 tsp garam masala

1 tbsp dried fenugreek leaves/kasoori methi

¼ cup fresh cream

Method:

Soak poppy seeds and cashew in warm water

Blanch the tomatoes. Blanching is immersing them in boiling water for 10 minutes and then immediately pop them into some cold water to stop the tomatoes cooking any further. Peel off the skin of tomatoes.

Add onions and garlic to same water that is boiling and let it cook for 8-10 minutes. The boiled onions when ground with tomatoes will help in getting creamier gravy as well there will be no raw flavor of the onions.

When the peeled tomatoes, onions and garlic are cool, grind them to a fine paste along with green chillies, ginger.

In a pan, on medium heat (to prevent spices from getting charred), add butter, once it starts to melt add turmeric powder, chili powder and coriander powder, and before it starts to burn add the ground paste. Add salt and bring to a boil.

Add Sugar, Garam Masala and dried fenugreek leaves crushed using the palms.

Add paneer and do not over mix because Paneer tends to crumble. Bring it to a boil and before switching off the stove, add Poppy-cashew paste (Do not add too much water to grind them) and fresh cream. Mix gently.

Cover the curry for few minutes, Paneer will be well soaked in the curry. If you over cook, as i mentioned before, paneer will start crumbling.

Serve with any Indian bread like roti, naan, rumali roti, etc.

Happy Cooking.