Simple paneer cheese

Making paneer is one of life's small simple joys.  I think we're so used to buying all our food we sometimes forget how easy it is to make things yourself: I'm thinking bread, butter, cheese... recipes our grandmothers used to know by heart.

We've made paneer at The Bombay Cook Club a few times, and have been experimenting with adding flavours to it.  Here are suggestions for three we made recently, but you can experiment with adding things according to your own preferences once you've mastered the basics.

To make one small round of cheese you will need:

2 litres of full cream milk (you can also add cream as a portion of this for a richer cheese)

3-4 tablespoons of vinegar (we use apple cider vinegar but you can use any type)

1 teaspoon of salt

Bring the milk to boil in a large pan, stirring frequently so the bottom doesn't burn. Once it is boiling, add salt and any flavourings, then add the vinegar and keep stirring. The milk will split into curds and whey very quickly.  When it does, take the pan to the sink and strain the curds into a strainer lined with a muslin cloth, or nut milk bag.  If you'd like to save the whey, do so, it can be used in baking in place of buttermilk.

Wrap the muslin cloth tightly around the curds and squeeze as much liquid out as you can.  Form a pat and place it back in the strainer, with a heavy weight on top of it. Leave for half an hour, then unwrap: you should have a firm block of cheese you can slice, eat immediately, use to make palak paneer, or fry like halloumi.

To make flavoured paneer, you basically need to add your extras to the milk at the same time as you add salt as follows:

RED CHILLI AND CUMIN SEED PANEER

Use 1 teaspoon of red chilli flakes and 1 teaspoon of cumin seeds.

FRESH HERB PANEER

Use 1 tablespoon of a couple of different herbs: we used basil and garlic chives.

SWEET PANEER

Don't add salt to this one.  Instead add 2 teaspoons of brown sugar, a good pinch of cardamom powder and as much saffron as you can spare: around 1/3 of a teaspoon works.  We also added a tablespoon of finely chopped walnuts.  

We served our sweet paneer with honey.

You can use your paneer to make palak paneer, from the recipe on this site. 

40 ingredient lamb curry

One of the best ways to maintain a healthy diet is to ensure you eat a diverse range of natural, minimally processed whole foods every day.  There are so many nutrients in whole food that you just can't take in supplement form, and I've found some of the best advice health advocates give is to encourage you to consume as many good, colourful, real ingredients as you can in order to get the benefits from a wide range of vitamins, minerals and phytonutrients (found in spices). 

My lamb curry is one big hit of whole ingredients, put together into a flavour packed combination that even my usually fussy children can't resist.  Including my bottle masala, which adds 20 freshly roasted whole spices to the mix, there are 40 real ingredients in this delicious meal.  Over 10 different vegetables, plus high quality meat and dairy in the form of ghee and full fat greek yoghurt.  I can guarantee you'll enjoy this curry as much if not more than any Indian take-away meal... because this curry contains the kind of long ingredient list you are actually looking for in your food.

To feed your family fully of goodness, you'll need:

1 kilo of good quality lamb, as free range as you can get, with bones (forequarter chops are great)

half a cup of full fat greek yoghurt

1 tablespoon of tomato paste

1 heaped tablespoon of Spice Mama's bottle masala (or very good quality curry powder)

1 teaspoon of salt

half a teaspoon of sugar

2 tablespoons of ghee

1 stalk of curry leaves

6-8 spring onions, finely chopped

1-2 green chillies, finely chopped

1 heaped tablespoon of grated ginger

2-3 cloves of garlic, crushed

1 teaspoon of grated fresh turmeric

1 chopped tomato

half a zucchini, grated

half a small eggplant, grated

half a cup of pumpkin, grated

2 large potatoes, cubed

half a cup of frozen peas

a large handful of baby spinach leaves 

a large handful of chopped coriander leaves 

With a list of ingredients a mile long, this recipe sounds much more complicated than it is.  To begin, clean and dice the lamb, then marinate in a mix of the yoghurt, tomato paste, bottle masala, salt and sugar.  Leave overnight or even half an hour helps if you're time poor.

Grate all the veggies: zucchini, eggplant and pumpkin, and set aside.

Heat ghee in a large, heavy based pot, then fry off the curry leaves, spring onions, chilli, ginger, garlic and turmeric until lightly brown, then add the tomato and keep frying until lightly mushy.  Add the grated vegetables and keep frying for another minute or two.  Then pour in the lamb and marinade, and fry for a few more minutes until the oil starts to separate from the mixture.

Turn the heat to low, add half a cup of water and cover, cook slowly, stirring occasionally, for an hour and a half.  After this time, add the potatoes, cook for another 15 minutes, then add the peas and cook for another few minutes.  At the end, taste for seasoning, adding more salt if you need to.  Stir through the fresh spinach leaves and chopped coriander just before serving. 

Hot and spicy pumpkin soup

One of the few consolations of winter is being able to eat unlimited amounts of lovely pumpkin. Pumpkin goes really well with Indian food, it has a sweetness which balances perfectly with spices and contrasts beautifully with ingredients like ginger, tamarind and lemon.

My favourite pumpkin soup is less of a recipe than an exercise of throwing everything in, and here is a rough idea of how to make it... adjust the quantities to suit your own personal preferences, once you've made it a few times you'll know what to add less or more of.  

For a family sized pot of soup, you will need:

half a large pumpkin, cleaned and diced: I like butternut pumpkin or squash 

1 tablespoon of coconut oil 

3-4 spring onions, finely chopped

1 tablespoon of ginger, finely grated

2 green chillies, finely chopped

1 teaspoon of cumin seeds

half a teaspoon of turmeric

a few cups of water or stock

1-2 teaspoons of tamarind paste (or the juice of a lemon)

half a tin of coconut milk (or more, to taste) (I use Ayam brand) 

salt and pepper (around a teaspoon of salt is good but add according to taste, especially if you use salty stock)

To make the soup, heat the oil in a large soup pot and stir fry the cumin seeds for a minute, then add the ginger, spring onions and chillies and fry a bit longer till lightly browned.  Add the pumpkin, sprinkle over the turmeric, add the stock, turn down the heat and cover the pot.  Cook until the pumpkin is mushy (around half an hour is plenty) and then blend the soup with a stick blender.  Add the tamarind, salt and pepper and a bit of coconut milk, stir, taste and serve with crusty bread or roti.