My newly found interest in cooking

Disclaimer: The recipes you see in my blog are not my own. I have checked for these at various sites and tried them at home. These posts will also help me in checking for the dish at a later point.

Paneer Butter Masala

Ingredients:

Butter / Margarine Paneer (slightly big pieces), Tomato (grind / chop finely such that cooks quick), Onions (grind / chop finely such that cooks quick), Chilli powder (Plain chilli powder + Dhania powder), Turmeric powder ( a pinch ), Ginger garlic paste, Cloves, Cashews (optional), Cinnamon, Garam masala powder, 3 - 4 Tsp Yogurt, coriander leaves, Salt, Methi leaves (few)

Preparation:

1. Heat oil/butter/margarine, fry the paneer cubes golden brown. Keep this aside

2. Slightly fry the methi leaves. Keep it aside.These will be added at the end of the preparation.Remember too many of these could make the dish bitter in taste.

3. Grate 3 cubes of paneer and keep it aside

4. Heat oil and/or [butter/Margarine], add cinnamon and cloves. Fry onions, ginger garlic paste, till the odour goes off the paste

5. Add tomato and simmer for 5 minutes.DO NOT ADD WATER. Try to fry these with butter/oil itself

6. Add cashews, garam masala powder, salt ( Add cautiously since butter/Margarine is in use, you don't want the dish get too salty),chilli powder, turmeric powder, extra butter

7. Add yogurt and stir until gravy becomes thick. Add grated paneer and mix well. Then add fried paneer cubes, add 1/2 -1 cup water and simmer for 5 minutes , until all the flavour is absorbed into paneer

8. Finally add coriander and fried methi from step 2

Things that I did wrong:

1. Added too much of grated paneer which thickened my gravy
2. Added very little water at the end. A good half cup should do
3. Did not fry the ginger garlic paste properly in oil, so the odour kind of remained
4. Forgot to add Methi

While speaking to my aunt I got to know another set of ingredients that could be used in making this dish. That is, use milk instead of curd. And use heavy cream to thicken the curry. This is a good variant of doing this dish too. In fact she reminded me that Paneer butter masala is incomplete without the Methi leaves at the end :). Thanks aunty. I am going to try this the next time :)
I have already made a quick mention to my husband that this dish is not going to be prepared often. We can't afford to intake this amount of fat into our system at a regular basis :)