Name: Pan-Fried Cheese with Green Peas (Mutter Paneer)
Yield: Serves 6
Cuisine: India
Ingredients: 2 tablespoons canola oil; 3 lengthwise slices fresh ginger (each 1½ inches long, 1 inch wide, and ⅛ inch thick); 1 small red onion, coarsely chopped; 3 large cloves garlic; 2 teaspoons Bin bhuna hua garam masala; 1 or 2 fresh green Thai, cayenne, or serrano chiles, to taste, stems removed; 1 cup tomato sauce, canned or homemade; 2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh cilantro leaves and tender stems; 1 teaspoon coarse kosher or sea salt; 8 ounces Doodh paneer, cut into 1-inch cubes and pan-fried (see box); 1 fresh or dried bay leaf; 1½ cups frozen peas (no need to thaw); ¼ cup heavy (whipping) cream; 1 teaspoon cumin seeds

Preparation info

Serves
6

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

660 Curries

By Raghavan Iyer

Published 2008

About

Show me one north Indian restaurant menu, or any special-occasion meal from that region, that does not include mutter paneer, and I will personally come to your house and cook it for you. That’s how confident I am that this pervasive curry will never stand me up. What’s not to love about cream, cheese, onion, and garlic? Throw in some perfumed spices, freshly ground, and you have yourself a winner, even if there are green peas in it. Trust me, your adventurous child will eat it and a