Sour (but in a good way) Paneer Curry!

Tonight tonight I made my very first curry from scratch. This is a ridiculous fact! My dad was almost ashamed. But not really.

His words were: “WHAT! You’ve never made a curry? You said this was your first curry?! ...... WHY?”

my words were: “cause you’ve always made good ones!”

End scene.

Anywho, it was a weird one – but quite lovely. Weird sounds bad, we’ll just say different. Just like I wasn't a weird child... I was just .... different! ;)

It’s sour from the yoghurt but creamy from the paneer. Result: I like it.

excuse the photo - i was hungry and impatient.

Slightly sour paneer curry.

Serves many!

½ block paneer, cubed*

½ block tempeh, cubed

6 slices zucchini

4 mushrooms, sliced

¼ cup frozen peas

2 Tablespoons peanut oil

Pinch asafoetida

½ T cumin seeds

4 cloves

1 onion, finely chopped

200g plain greek yoghurt

2 T ground coriander

½ t ground turmeric

½ t red chilli powder

½ t garam masala

salt

200mL water

1cm ginger, finely diced

Juice of ½ lemon

Salt

Sugar

Heat peanut oil in pan until quite hot. Cut paneer and tempeh into 1cm cubes and fry for 2 minutes on each side. The easiest and most fun way to do this is with knife and fork! They will turn golden brown like magic! Magic, I tells ya. Remove from pan. Try not to eat all before meal is prepared.

Using same pan, fry vegetables until tender and then add to paneer/tempeh mix.

To make sauce, heat peanut oil until quite hot. Add asafoetida, cumin seeds and cloves and fry until they begin to (snap, crackle and) pop.

Add the onion and cook until soft, about 6 minutes.

Meanwhile, mix the yoghurt with the coriander, turmeric, chilli powder, salt and garam masala. It will make a lovely yellowy-reddy looking picture!

Add the yoghurt mix to the onions and continue stirring rapidly until it comes to boiling point. This should prevent the yoghurt from splitting. Mine split : | No biggie, yo.

Once boiling, add 200mL of water, or less – depending how thin you want the sauce to be. Add the vegetables and peas and heat through.

Serve with freshly squeezed lemon and adjust seasoning with salt and sugar.

Eat with roti!

*****The paneer could be substituted for root vegetables for a nice change. I think pumpkin would be ultimately delish dish.