Paneer Pasanda

The creamy, nutty pasanda is a favourite curry of ours; there's a local curry house that makes chicken pasanda, and we always order it when eating there. This is our first attempt at making a pasanda at home. It lived up to our expectations.

The recipe as written expects you to prepare this as a side dish or appetizer, cutting long "fingers" of paneer, grilling them, and then serving them soaked in pasanda sauce. We made it as a main course, pan-frying smaller cubes of paneer and serving it over rice.

Ingredients

• 400mL coconut milk
• 64mL slivered blanched almonds, ground
• 5mL coarsely cracked black pepper
• 2.5mL coarse salt
• 10-20 fresh curry leaves
• 6 whole cloves
• 4 green or white cardamom pods
• 1 cinnamon stick
• Malai paneer from 2L of cream, cubed
• 30mL canola oil
• 1 small red onion, finely chopped

Procedure

1. Pour the coconut milk, almonds, pepper, salt, curry leaves, cloves, cardamom, and cinnamon into a pot. Bring to a simmer over medium heat, stirring occasionally.
2. Remove from the heat and add the paneer cubes, ideally covering them all completely with the sauce. Set aside for ~30 minutes so the paneer can soak up the sauce and absorb the flavours.
3. Remove the paneer cubes from the pot using a slotted spoon. Transfer them to a bowl to drain further.
4. Heat the oil in a deep skillet over medium-high heat. Add the onion and cook until it softens and browns around the edges, 3-5 minutes.
5. Add the sauce, reduce heat to medium, and simmer, uncovered, until the sauce heats through and thickens, another 3-5 minutes. Remove from the heat.
6. Meanwhile, heat a generous amount of oil in a skillet and pan-fry the paneer cubes until golden brown. Add any additional sauce that drained off to the onion/sauce skillet.
7. Heat the sauce back up (if necessary) and mix in the fried paneer.
8. Eat.