Paneer Masala/ Cottage cheese in Indian spice sauce

Hello sweeties!!!! Did you guys miss me, I am very sorry and kindly accept my apologies for being MIA for such along time.

I will skip the excuses and say that even though I was cooking regular food, there was nothing that was worth mention here. Not any more, I am back with a very easy and simple Paneer dish, that won thumbs up from Munchkin. He even asked for the gravy  sans the paneer and that's a lot coming from a 5 yr old foodie.

Another piece of news worth sharing is that Indulge-ashscorner has been nominated for the Indiblogger awards.
I will need your blessings and kind comments to find mention in the list. Please pretty please  check the link, recommend and comment to show your support for my work.

Coming back to the recipe, its fairly simple and easy to put together if you have paneer ready. I get mine from the Indian grocery store, but you can make it at home.

You will need;
 
1 large Onions
3 Tomatoes--Pureed or use 1/2 of the 8oz can
1 inch piece Ginger
3 tbspns chopped cilantro
1/4 tspnTurmeric powder
1 tspn Red chili powder
1 tspn Coriander powder
1 tspn Garam masala powder
1 pod green Cardamom-broken with but with the skin in tact
1 tbspn Cashew Paste
** Soak Cashews in milk with 1 tspn kasuri methi for 1 hour and grind it into paste.
Salt to taste
Paneer around 200 gms.
** soak the paneer in water and milk and microwave it for 25 secs to soften it.

Peel, wash and chop onions and ginger finely. 

In a blender take the onions and tomatoes, ginger and cilantro and grind into fine paste.
Heat two tablespoons oil in a pan and add the above paste. Sauté till lightly browned. Add turmeric powder, red chili powder, coriander powder, salt and let it cook for 2 minutes till the raw onion smell goes away Add the cashew paste, garam masala powder and the green cardamom and let that fry till it leaves the sides of the pot.

Then add little water( Water + Milk from the paneer works well) to make it gravy consistency and add diced pieces of the paneer. Cover and cook for 4-5 minutes, taking care that the paneer does not get mushy and the gravy does not stick to the pan.
The paneer masala is ready to be served.

Please also note that August will be vacation time for Ms. Ash and we will be back from interesting tit bits from home and  maybe an awesome giveaway around September. Stay hooked and watch this space to win some sweet notes.