Paneer in tomato & cashew gravy – National Curry Week 3rd – 9th October

Paneer in tomato & cashew gravy with dhal and steamed white rice 👍

This dish is taken from Atul Kochhar’s book ‘Curry Everyday’. I’ve mentioned before that this book is purely vegetarian with over 100 recipes to choose from. I cooked this dish purely because I had all the ingredients in the house plus I had some paneer that needed using up.

There are two parts to this dish. The tomato gravy which then gets added to the onion & spices.

Ingredients for the tomato gravy – 1 tin of chopped tomatoes, 125ml of water, small piece of ginger finely chopped, 12 cashew nuts, 3 garlic cloves, 2 bruised cardamom pods, 2 cloves & 1 green chilli finely chopped.

It’s as simple as adding by these to a saucepan, bring to a simmer then let it do its magic for 15 minutes or so until the cashew nuts have become nice and soft.

Once you’re happy with the cashew nuts, remove from the heat and blitz with a hand blender. This will make a beautiful gravy, put this aside whilst you prepare and cook the rest of the dish.

Ingredients for the main dish – a knob of butter, dried bay leaf, 1 onion finely diced, 1 tsp of ground coriander. 1/2 tsp of chilli powder, 1/2 tsp of ground cumin, 1 tbsp of tomato purée, 1 tsp of fenugreek, 1 tsp of sugar, 1/2 tsp of garam masala, 200g of paneer cut into cubes, handful of chopped fresh coriander, 125ml of single cream and sea salt.

Heat the butter in a heavy based pan. As the butter bubbles add the bay leaf and allow it to sizzle for 30 seconds then add your diced onion with a pinch of sea salt. Cook this until the onions are charging colour, almost brown.