Paneer with spinach

With the lock down happening , one of the things which I began doing inadvertently is revisiting  recipes which I had  written down before the kids were born. Most of these recipes were shared by my mother or by friends of hers who were phenomenal cooks.

They made simple dishes taste extraordinarily good. They were all about daily recipes using foods that were part of our weekly shopping list. They knew just how to make that carrot taste ‘carrotier’ or the spinach look appetising enough for a child to want to eat it every day.

The reason I began looking up these recipes from my earliest of hand written cook books was mainly because over the years these recipes had lost their charm or more importantly the soul was taken away from the body of the vegetable !

Paneer with spinach made in a ‘Longpi’ stone pottery wok

Why you may wonder… with the many cooks and kitchen helpers who I have crossed paths with over the years of marriage,these recipes have undergone various metamorphosis under their skilled and sometimes not so interested hands and minds. As a result we had altogether stopped eating many of these dishes because they had become rather unpalatable, sadly.This recipe is paneer with palak ,it is different from a typical Palak paneer in consistency ,texture and in the use of whole spices. Some people aren’t too fond of blended spinach.This is an alternative. Feel free to use locally grown greens for this recipe ,it goes just as well. These pictures are fresh from my kitchen.The distint yellow colour is from my home grown turmeric rhizomes and the fact that I am using a tad bit more these days for that immunity boost ! Isn’t everyone ?!

The intent to revive those precious recipes happened organically and I feel so blessed and grateful that it did. Now the purpose is to document these and share. So these recipes are from kitchens where they were nurtured and brought together with a great deal of care and hard work. I share it from mine with just the same feelings of joy and caring.

I am also telling you all this because if you do make it or share it with someone else please do let me know.Tag my pages on social media or send an e mail to let me know your thoughts. I even asked a friend recently to go back and comment on a blogger’s recipe because it came out great….that’s just the encouragement we need to keep sharing 🙂