The Last Post

Hello to all of my readers.

First–I want to thank all of you not only for sending emails and posting comments of concern here after I dropped off the face of the Internet again. You all have and still do mean a great deal to me–having so many friendly readers and a community of folks who post incisive, interesting comments that spark discussion is like having a huge extended family that spans the globe. The joy I have taken from writing with you–because I do think of this blog as a collaborative effort–you ask questions, start discussions, suggest topics–has been a huge part of my life for over five years, and I will never, ever forget it. The love I have felt from all of you has buoyed me up on many a dark day or even darker night when despair has threatened to cast a pall that even the sun cannot lift.

But, the truth is this–I cannot write Tigers & Strawberries anymore.

Not because i don’t love my readers, and not because I don’t love food.

It’s because of this–I am tired of lying. Or, rather, I am tired of not telling the whole truth. The truth should not be a burden, it should be a lodestar to our lives, but in my case, it had become something of which I was ashamed, so I avoided it.

The simple truth is this–the way I have portrayed my childhood and experiences on this blog, while true, only show a part of the experiences that make up my existence. Yes, my grandparents had a farm, and yes, I grew up learning all of the food-growing and preparing skills that people commonly learned in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Yes, I loved my grandparents and they loved me. Yes, the story about my father and the cow is 100 percent true, and yes, I went to culinary school and was a caterer, and was a chef and all of that. Everything I have written here is true.

But, I ignored the other half of my truth. I ignored the fact that I grew up in an extremely dysfunctional family situation which continued until my mid-twenties, one which continued to affect my life deeply until a few months ago when I started intensive therapy to deal with all of the rage, fear and horror I had repressed that had to do with this background.

Having a really good therapist listen to the other side of things, to the darkness that lay hidden in my heart and mind which poisoned my very body with ill-health and which threatened my life, cracked open the walls I had built around myself, and made me look objectively at how I had molded myself and contorted my true personality in order to not only repress that truth, but also to conform to what my family, and later, everyone else, expected of me.

When light poured through the cracks in the wall and illuminated my understanding of my past, present and future, I realized that I didn’t really know myself anymore. I had been so busy crafting a personality of perfection, a woman who was in strict control of her emotions, whose childhood and early adulthood had been scrubbed of all unpleasantness (it isn’t that I forgot the unpleasantness, I simply ignored it and never spoke of it to anyone) that I lost sight of the genuine person who I had been trying to protect behind that carefully crafted facade.

Unfortunately, I am now trying to figure out who and what I am! And because so much of Tigers & Strawberries is tied up with that image of a farm girl who had a nearly idyllic life in the country, I find I cannot keep writing here.

And, frankly, I’m kind of tired of taking pictures of every dinner I make! Sometimes, I just want to cook and eat, and that is okay.

But, truly–I do miss you all. And I want to keep writing, but I just cannot keep writing only about food. I just can’t right now.

So, it is time to stop writing here and start writing somewhere else.

I will keep T&S up and active here so folks can still get the recipes, and post comments asking questions. I will still monitor the site for questions and answer them when I see them. I still want folks to be able to use this site as a great cooking resource, because the truth is, I am proud of what i have created here and I don’t want it to disappear.

I am going to start a new blog, probably on Blogger, which is not my first choice of venue, but which is convenient. It will be a much more general blog, though, you know me, there will be recipes and pictures of food! We can’t get around that! But the topics I write about will range from ruminations of fiction writing, news on various projects I am working on (yes, including books, hopefully), my adventures with fabric, news on how the Kat is growing and tales of the adventures of various members of my household. There will probably also be tales that are from the darker, sadder part of my life, because, well, that truth deserves to be told. There is no way to appreciate light if we ignore the darkness.

So, I will post one more time here to give a link to the new blog, which is likely to be called, “Summoning the Muse,” because that is what I am trying to do. I am trying to find my inner self, the one who is full of inspiration and courage, the one who has kept me alive all of these years. She’s been waiting a very long time to get out and see the sun, and I think she deserves a chance to stretch her wings and tell her tale for a bit.

Thank you all again. I can never, ever articulate how much all of you have meant to me. I hope that some of you at least follow my new adventures in the new blog, but I understand very much that many of you only really want to read about cooking. For those of you, I wish you all a fond and loving farewell.

For the others–thanks for coming along with me into uncharted territory.

I appreciate the company,

Happy Generic Winter Holiday: Cherry Chocolate Chip Cookies

Last week, while I was taking a bath and Kat was assisting by throwing rubber duckies into the tub on top of me, I decided to attempt to distract her by telling her that we were going to start making cookies this week for the holidays.

And she said my favorite word in the English language. (No, not “chocolate.”)

She stopped, poised in mid-throw, ducky hovering over her head like a bloated blue hummingbird and said, “Why?”

I nearly wept with joy. It was the first time she had asked one of us “why?” about anything! And it was about cookies!

I grinned and said, “Well, making cookies is a tradition at Christmastime. I’ve been baking cookies every Christmas for thirty years, and I hope to be doing it for another thirty.”

“But why, Mommy?”

Why, indeed.

I perked right up, and happily watched as the wee blue ducky, long forgotten, was dropped on the bathmat where it would lurk, waiting to trip me up as I got out of the tub. Putting on my best “Mommy has a minor in history voice” I answered, “All over the world, at this time of year, when the nights get longer and longer and longer and darker and darker, people celebrate the return of the light, as the days slowly start to lengthen and the nights become shorter again. All over the world, people have holidays that celebrate the light, and on those holidays we give gifts, we feast and we make sweets like cookies, to rejoice in teh return of the sun, and the light of hope and love in our hearts.”

It sounded good, and Kat nodded sagely.

I finished and she piped up with, “But what do cookies have to do with light?”

Ah, she thought she got me with that one, but no! I had a ready answer, and it is even historically accurate.

“Well,” I said as I started draining the tub, for the ablutions were completed, the last five minutes of them blissfully duck-free, “long ago before there were refrigerators and grocery stores, people had to grow all of their food and store it for the winter. And sometimes, if the winter was really cold, or the harvest had been bad or if the snows lasted longer than usual, people would start running out of food near the end of winter. So, in the beginning of winter, when there was still plenty of food stored up, people would make and eat fattening foods like cookies and roast meats and cheeses so they could fatten themselves up to live through the winter. That way, if they ran short of food, they had a bit of fat on them to keep them strong until springtime. And the feasting just happened to coincide with the return of the sunlight, so the holiday tradition of making cookies was born.”

So there we are. That’s why we make cookies at Christmas.

Now, as to why I make cookies at Christmas, that is another story. I make them every year, because since I was fourteen years old, that was my holiday job. I did the baking. I made bread, cakes and especially cookies. I wasn’t really allowed to cook anything else in my mother’s kitchen, but since she didn’t much care for baking, and I did it so well, she turned the duty over to me, and I just kept on with it, happily becoming along the way somewhat of a cookie expert.

The first recipes I used were the family ones, handed down from great-grandmothers, a couple of them even coming all the way from Germany. And, of course, I used the Toll House Cookie recipe on the back of the pouch of Nestle’s semi-sweet chocolate chips. I insisted on using real butter in all of my baking–my Mom liked to use margarine, but I was having none of that. All of the recipes called for butter, and butter is what I used–who was I to argue with my long-dead great grandmothers? You don’t mess with the ancestors, man–they can come back to haunt you. I also insisted on real chocolate chips, and real vanilla extract too. Mom grumbled, but bought the ingredients I specified, and when she tasted the results, she stopped grumbling.

Over the years, I started experimenting, and worked out new recipes, some of which were based on the old family favorites, like my Aphrodite Cakes, which is based on my great-grandmother’s German sugar cookies. Others were based on ideas I had, like what would a cookie with Sichuan peppercorns in it taste like? Would lavender be good in shortbread? What about chilies in a brownie? Why can’t I put toffee chips and cinnamon bits and espresso powder and just use brown sugar in chocolate chip cookies? If Irish Cream is good with cream cheese in brownies, what happens if you add raspberry preserves and Chambord?

That is the cool thing about cookies. They are easy to play with. You can add ingredients, subtract them, change them, modify them by chilling or melting them, and you can almost always, if you have a bit of knowledge about baking, come up with something that will taste amazing. Cakes–they are much trickier, and I would not play as fast and loose with cake recipes as I do with cookies. Pies–well, I play with fillings all the time, but I stick pretty close to the general ideas when it comes to the crust. I will add ingredients and change proportions a little, but not like I do with cookies. Pie crust is too fragile to mess with very much, and cake–it is just finicky.

But cookies are forgiving. They are easy and they are fast and they are fun. So, I love playing around in the kitchen every year and coming up with new and tasty additions to the holiday sweets repertoire.

This year, I wanted to do something new with a chocolate chip cookie.

But I didn’t want to overload it like I did with the Coyote Chip Cookies. Granted, they are lovely, and I like them a great deal, but Zak is not fond of them, and I wanted to make a chocolate chip cookie that both he and I could enjoy together.

What flavors go with chocolate?

Coffee. Been there, done that.

Nuts? Eh–I have to be careful with that, Zak can be weird about nuts. He likes some of them and not others.

Something was niggling at the back of my brain, trying to get my attention and suddenly, I remembered–Zak had just said the other day at the grocery store when we were buying candy canes that he doesn’t know a thing about those because he doesn’t really like peppermint candy, but chocolate covered cherries–those he used to be able to eat by the box.

And what is his favorite (non-Jeni’s) ice cream? Cherry Garcia.

Ah ha! Cherry chocolate chip cookies!

Why had I not thought of it before? What exactly is wrong with me? Dried sour cherries added to the usual Toll House style cookie, with milk chocolate instead of semi-sweet, since Zak prefers the former, and some almonds to help boost the flavor of the cherries and add a bit of crisp texture to the chewy fruit and cookies–perfect!

Yeah, I was right. The tart cherries are chewy and tangy, and you can taste the cherry flavor very well in the golden cookie, and it pairs beautifully with the rich, sweet milk chocolate. Almonds pair perfectly with both chocolate and cherries, and they added some crunch and the whole thing is just soul-satisfying.

He ate three for breakfast this morning. Brittney, who came to take care of Kat while we were in Columbus for my therapy appointment and for Generic Winter Holiday shopping, had one and declared it “Amazing.”

There are a few caveats: one, use Mariani brand dried cherries if you can find them. They are plump, chewy and delightfully tart. You don’t want to use sweet cherries in this–you want to use sour red cherries. Mariani are the best I have come across for baking–they do not dry out and do not require plumping before baking. So, seek them out. Two–toast your almonds before you put them in the cookie dough–it brings out the flavor in them. And three–you can use half semi-sweet chocolate chips and half milk, but I think milk chocolate is better, because it is a better foil for the tart sour cherries than the lightly bitter semi-sweet would be.

It is my new favorite, and here it is–one of my gifts to you this holiday season. Go bake a batch and celebrate the return of the light with a little bit of dietary fat and sugar!

Cherry Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients:

2 1/4 cups all purpose flour (or 1 1/4 cups all purpose flour and 1 cup white whole wheat flour)
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup cold butter
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract (optional)
2 large eggs
12 ounce package milk chocolate chips
6 ounce packaged Mariani dried sour cherries
1 cup sliced almonds, toasted

Method:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Stir flour, salt and baking soda together in a bowl and set aside.

With a mixure, cream together the cold butter and sugars, until well blended and fluffy. add the extracts and eggs, and beat well until mixture is smooth. Add flour mixture in thirds, and mix until well blended. add chocolate chips, cherries and almonds, and stir until combined.

Drop by rounded tablespoonsful onto not greased baking sheets (I line mine with silicone liners) and bake for 9-11 minutes, or until golden brown, but still seeming to be lightly underdone in the center. Remove from oven and allow to cool two minutes on the baking sheet, then transfer to a rack. Allow to cool until the cookie is still warm to the touch, but is firm and not hot. Place into a container with a tight-fitting lid and seal them up and allow them to cool the rest of the way. (This guarantees a chewy texture to the cookie.)

Makes about three and a half dozen cookies.

Meatless Monday: Saag Paneer

Saag paneer is a traditional Punjabi recipe for a mixture of mustard greens and spinach, cooked together with spices in a creamy sauce that is dotted with cubes of fried paneer. It is by turns, tingly, velvety, and tender-chewy, with a lovely flavor from the combination of spicy mustard greens and smooth, mild spinach.

Truly, saag paneer is one of my favorite northern Indian specialties; I like it even better than rogan gosht or mattar paneer. This is probably because I have such a passion for greens–spinach was a favorite food when I was a small child and I adored both mustard greens and kale. Collards and turnip greens were also eaten often in the winter months during my childhood, and I loved them all, which is a great thing, because all dark green leafies have a hefty dose of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and phytochemicals.

When I make saag paneer, I do not feel constrained by the rule that it should contain only mustard greens and spinach; I like all of the greens so much that I cannot restrain myself from adding them into the mixture. Besides, most restaurants make “saag paneer” using only spinach–which really should be called “palak paneer.” “Palak” is the word for spinach–and saag paneer made this way is too mild for my taste. Nothing wrong with it, really, its just not as robust and satisfying as proper saag paneer. Also, most restaurants puree the spinach in saag paneer, until they have essentially made a very smooth, thick sauce for the fried paneer cubes. That is fine, but I like my greens to have more texture, so I roughly chop mine, and let the cooking wilt them to a soft silky texture that still has a toothsome quality.

This particular batch of saag paneer included fresh local spinach, local turnip greens standing in for mustard greens, (they are in the same family, after all) local arugula, fresh methi greens and collards. To boost the fragrance of the methi, I added soaked dried methi greens to the masala paste before grinding it.

I also cook them for less time than most restaurants–my saag paneer is quite brilliantly verdant–filled with the goodness of lightly cooked mixed greens. This retains more of the vitamins and minerals that make greens so good for us, as well as making the color of the dish more appealing. (Again, there is nothing wrong with the flavor of restaurant saag paneer with its overcooked, pureed greens–I will never turn it down when it is presented before me–but I like mine better.)

In order to make great saag paneer, the greens re important, but so is the cheese. Make your own, or get the best quality store bought paneer you can–fresh, not frozen. Frozen paneer can get mealy in texture and is not good.

The best store bought paneer I have ever found is Nanak brand. It is creamy with a sweet, milky flavor that is a great foil for the lightly bitter greens in this dish. When pan fried, the outside crisps to a nice golden brown crust, and the interior is chewy and creamy without being rubbery or crumbly. (Some brands of paneer taste like old pencil erasers–ick.)

To pan fry paneer for curries, I cut it into 1/2 inch cubes. I start by slicing 1/2 inch thick pieces across the length of the block of cheese. Then, stacking three of these slices together, I cut them in half longitudinally, then cut those pieces into three cubes–you got it, approximately 1/2 inches each. Lots of recipes call for 1 inch cubes of cheese, but I like the smaller cubes better. More crispy crust to chewy cheese ratio, and I think they look prettier in the dish that way.

Pan-frying paneer is simple, and is one of the few times I still use a nonstick skillet.

I pour a couple of tablespoons of canola or peanut oil into the nonstick skillet and heat it until it shimmers over medium high heat. Then, I scatter a handful of paneer cubes over the bottom of the pan, and let them brown on the bottom. Then, using a spatula, I turn the cubes and let them brown on all sides. Be careful not to overcrowd the pan–it makes it easier to turn the cheese cubes if the pan isn’t crowded, and of course, it keeps the oil from cooling too much. Cooled oil will seep into the cheese and make it heavy and greasy.

Once the cheese is brown on all sides, remove it from the pan to drain on a pile of paper towels. If you want, sprinkle some with salt and have a great snack while its still hot!

One thing I have to warn you about–frying paneer can be a messy business, as the cheese sputters and pops, sending oil droplets spattering over the stovetop, the countertop and your arms. Wear long sleeves and an apron to protect yourself from the shower of hot oil, and keep your face well away, especially when you turn the cubes with the spatula. Taking a hit in the face with hot oil, which I have had happen more than once, is not fun.

Once the cubes are all fried, you can let them cool down and store them in the fridge for later use or just set them aside until you have the rest of the curry ready. The cheese hardens up as it cools, but have no fear–once you put it into the curry, it will soften right up and as it warms, it will become like little sponges, soaking up the sauce and flavors, taking on a chewy texture that is a delightful contrast to the soft greens.

Saag Paneer
Ingredients:

2 1/2 tablespoons canola oil or ghee
1 1/2 cups thinly sliced red onions
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds
1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 tablespoon dried methi leaves, soaked in 3 tablespoons hot water
1″ chunk fresh ginger, peeled and cut into slices
4 large cloves garlic, peeled and sliced
1″ long piece fresh turmeric root, peeled and sliced (or 1/4 teaspoon ground dried turmeric)
1-3 green thai chilies, stemmed
1 1/2 tablespoons coriander seeds
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds
1/4 teaspoon fenugreek seeds
1/4 teaspoon black peppercorns
1 tablespoon Aleppo pepper flakes
7 cups mixed fresh greens, including at least mustard greens and spinach, large veins and stems removed and roughly chopped
1/4-1/2 cup water
1/2 cup Greek yogurt
1/2 cup cream
8 ounces paneer, cut into 1/2 inch cubes and pan fried until golden brown, then drained and cooled
salt to taste

Method:

Heat the oil or ghee in a heavy bottomed, deep skillet or pot over medium high heat and add onions when the oil shimmers. Sprinlkle with salt and cook, stirring as needed, until the onions are a nice medium golden brown. Add the mustard and cumin seeds. Grind together the next few ingredients, from the dried methi leaves to the Aleppo pepper flakes, into a yellowish green paste, using some of the soaking liquid from the methi as needed to make a smooth paste.

When the mustard seeds sputter and pop, add the spice paste, and cook, stirring, until everything is fragrant and the onions are a reddish brown. Add the greens all at once, and stir in the water, starting with the smaller amount. Cook, stirring until the greens deepen in color and wilt. Once the greens are wilted, stir in the yogurt and cream. Bring to a simmer, and add the paneer, and cook, stirring, until the cheese is heated through and spongy–about five to ten minutes.

Add salt to taste and serve with naan or roti or steamed basmati rice.

Creamy Chicken Curry with Peas: Muttar Murghi

Yet another inspiration from 660 Curries. I swear, every time I pick the book up and leaf through it, I find another dish I want to run into my kitchen and cook. It never fails–and what is even more amazing, is that there are very few photographs in the book. I just read the titles of the recipes, look at the description and run down the ingredient list and I am hooked. Nearly everything in the book sounds distinctly appetizing.

The chicken in this curry is amazingly tender for two reasons–one, is the yogurt-based marinade. You don’t leave the chicken in it for long–if you do, the acidic yogurt will start breaking down too much of the protein in the chicken and will give the flesh a cottony, spongy texture which is less than appealing. But even as little as a half hour’s soak in the thick, fragrant yogurt blend will tenderize the chicken admirably. An hour is even better.

The other reason is that if you cook the curry on medium low heat and keep an eye on the chicken and stop cooking it just after it firms up–it will be almost meltingly tender. High heat will firm the chicken too much, but the combination of yogurt and medium low heat is magical–the chicken is velvety and delicious.

Of course, I changed the recipe up a bit. Don’t I always?

The first change came when I ground up fresh turmeric root into the marinade instead of using the dried turmeric called for in the book. I love the medicinal fragrance and slightly sharp, tingly flavor of fresh turmeric, and the color it imparts to curries, as you can see in the photograph above, is remarkably pretty.

I also chose to use a different spice mixture than the author required. His had coconut and peanuts in it; I was not in a peanut and coconut mood, so I used one of my own masala mixtures which is heavy on coriander seed and cardamom. I added a couple of bay leaves; I figured that their sharp, herbal tang would combine beautifully with the fresh turmeric.

Speaking of bay leaves–they have a completely different character when you grind them up rather than using them whole. I have never used them ground except in Indian foods, but I may change that when it becomes grilling season again. I think that a bit of bay leaf in a rub for steak or chicken would be fantastic.

This recipe comes together quickly–after you grind up the dry spices into a masala, set them aside and grind up the garlic, ginger, turmeric, and chilies, then whisk these together into the cream and yogurt mixture. Marinate the chicken in it while you slice the shallots and cook your rice. Then you just brown the shallots, scrape the chicken into the pan, and sprinkle it with the masala. Cook, stirring, until the chicken just firms up–it takes about twelve minutes or so–add the peas, and cook until they thaw and warm up, and there you are–dinner!

Muttar Murghi
Ingredients:

3 1/2 teaspoons coriander seeds
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
10 green cardamom pods
1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds
2 bay leaves
1/2″ piece cinnamon stick
1/2 teaspoon black peppercorns
3 whole cloves
1 teaspoon Aleppo pepper flakes
3/4 cup whole fat or low fat (not fat free) Greek style yogurt
1/4 cup heavy cream
1 1/2″ cube fresh ginger, peeled and roughly chopped
1 teaspoon salt
2″ long piece fresh turmeric root, peeled and roughly chopped
4-6 large garlic cloves, peeled and sliced
2-3 fresh green Thai chilies
2 whole boneless skinless chicken breasts (four halves), cut into 3/4″ cubes
2 tablespoons ghee or canola oil
1 1/2 cups thinly sliced shallots or red onion
8 ounce package frozen peas
salt to taste
1/2 cup roughly chopped cilantro leaves

Method:

Grind together all of the dry spices. Measure out a tablespoon of the mixture and seal the rest up in a container for use another day.

Whisk together the yogurt and cream, and then grind together the ginger, salt, turmeric root (if you do not have access to the fresh root, use 1/4 teaspoon dried, ground turmeric root), garlic and chilies. Whisk these together with the yogurt and cream mixture until well combined and smooth. Toss the chicken pieces into the marinade and cover and allow to sit for at least thirty minutes.

Heat the canola oil or ghee in a heavy-bottomed skillet on medium flame. Add the shallots or onions, and cook, stirring, until they turn a nice, rich golden color. Add the chicken, scraping as much marinade as possible into the pan and turn the heat down to medium low. Rinse the marinade bowl, getting all the good stuff off the sides of the bowl, with 1/2 cup water, and set the bowl with the water aside.

Cook, stirring, as needed until the chicken loses most of its pink color and some of the marinade starts to stick to the bottom of the pan and brown. Deglaze the pan with the water in the marinade bowl, and scrape up all the browned bits. Stir in the peas, turn up the heat slightly to medium, and cook until the chicken is just firm and no pink shows and the peas are heated through.

Add salt to taste and garnish with the cilantro leaves.

Meatless Monday: Methi Malai Paneer

Or, in plain English, Paneer Cheese with Fenugreek Greens and Cream.

I ask you all–how in the world can this be bad? It contains fried cheese, the tastiest greens this side of collards and cream.

The answer of course is: it can’t possibly be bad!

And it isn’t. It is, in a word, amazing. The paneer is springy and sweet with a crisp exterior, there are almonds for crunch and a discreet nutty flavor, and the sauce is tangy, creamy and thick, and scented with the rich grassy fragrance of methi greens.

I like it even better than mattar paneer, and that says a lot, because that dish pretty much got me to eat peas and actually like them. (Zak still prefers mattar paneer, but he still really liked methi malai paneer, too.) And here’s the great part–it is easier to make than mattar paneer, and it has less fat in it, because there is only 1/2 cup of cream in the whole dish, which will feed four people as part of a multi-dish Indian meal, or three if you are only eating it and some rice or bread.

I got the idea to make this from Raghavan Iyer’s wonderful book, 660 Curries, which has become my go-to tome when I want to make Indian food, but I want to make something different, and I don’t just want to “wing it” and make up a Barbara curry. (There is nothing at all wrong with winging it and making my own curries–my curries are quite tasty, but sometimes you need new ideas to spark your appetite.) I was digging through the book, while I still had a gallbladder and was desperately trying to find something I could eat that had flavor, and had found this recipe in the long and drool-inducing paneer chapter. Sadly, though it caused instant salivation, it also made me queasy, because of the butter, paneer and cream it contained. I knew how sick it would make me if I had the audacity to eat it right then. So, I bookmarked it and promised myself to return to it as soon as my gallbladder was out and I could buy fresh methi greens.

And that is exactly what I did.

Now, of course, all of you know that I had to change it a bit. And I did, but I still credit the basic idea of this recipe to the very talented Mr. Iyer.

I added browned onions, garlic, some mustard seeds to be browned with the cumin seeds, and I ground up dried soaked methi leaves up with the garlic and spices. I also added some Aleppo pepper flakes, though next time, I may use a stronger chili. And I used more of the fresh methi greens than he called for-he only used one cup and I used three. Why? Because too much is better than not enough, I had lots of methi and needed to use it and I really like the stuff. And, it is good for you.

It cooks up really quickly–I can totally see making this for dinner at the end of a busy day after putting some basmati rice in the rice cooker. It takes about a half hour, prep time included, to make. (Mind you, I cut, chop and mince quickly, but still–it is a fast dish.)

You could make it go even faster by pre-frying the paneer cheese over the weekend and keeping it sealed up in your fridge ready to turn into a delicious curry later in the week. Iyer says you can freeze fried paneer, but I don’t really like the texture of it after it thaws all that much. I think it gets a bit mealy.

The best part of this curry though, other than the fact that it is creamy, delicious and soul-satisfying, perfect for a cold winter night–is that it leaves your home perfumed with the glorious mown-hay scent of fenugreek.

It is heavenly.

Methi Malai Paneer
Ingredients:

8 ounces paneer, cut into 1/2″ cubes
1/4 cup canola or peanut oil
2 tablespoons ghee, canola oil or butter
3/4 cup thinly sliced red onion or shallot
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1/2 teaspoon black mustard seeds
1/4 cup slivered blanched almonds
1/4 cup dried methi greens soaked in hot water and squeezed out
2 large cloves garlic
1/4 teaspoon fenugreek seeds
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
2 teaspoons Aleppo pepper flakes
1/2 teaspoon fennel seed
1/4 teaspoon peppercorns
2 1/2 -3 cups roughly chopped fresh fenugreek greens (remove big stems before chopping)
1/2 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons tomato paste (I use the stuff that comes in a big tube like toothpaste–it is concentrated and easy to keep in the fridge on hand)
1 teaspoon salt (or to taste)

Method:

Heat the 1/4 cup of canola oil in a heavy-bottomed nonstick (or well-seasoned cast iron) skillet over medium heat until it shimmers. Add half of the paneer and cook, turning over with a spatula now and again, until it is golden brown and crispy on all sides. Remove with a spatula to drain on paper towels, and fry the next batch.

In a heavy-bottomed deep skillet, heat the ghee, oil or butter on medium heat until it either foams or shimmers. Add the onion or shallot and cook, stirring, until the slices turn golden brown. Sprinkle in the cumin seeds, mustard seeds and almonds, and continue stirring.

While the onions, spices and almonds cook, grind up the soaked dried methi, garlic, fenugreek seeds, cumin seeds, pepper flakes, fennel seeds, amd peppercorns into a fine, fragrant paste.

When the almonds are lightly browned and the onions are a reddish brown, add the spice paste, and cook, stirring for another couple of minutes.

Add the fresh methi leaves and cook, stirring, until they wilt slightly–about a minute and a half. Turn heat down to low. Add the cream and tomato paste, then stir in with the salt. Add the fried paneer cubes to the sauce and cook, stirring as needed until the paneer turns soft and spongy–about 5 to 8 minutes. The sauce will also reduce until it thickens and basically clings to all of the other ingredients, leaving very little in the pan.

Serve with bread or rice.