It’s week 3 of COVID lockdown and food recipes are growing (along with my waistline!)

This week – Chilli Paneer

Paneer is an Indian farmers cheese and has a lovely mellow flavour with a subtle richness and lightness at the same time. Coupled with some spicy sticky sauce and some crispy stir fried vegetables? It makes an awesome accompaniment to a meal.

Here is my take on it.

For the sauce, you will need

1tbsp veg oil

1/2tsp cumin seeds (jeera)

1 medium onion finely chopped

2″ ginger cut into julienned

3 garlic cloves chopped

1 cup of tomato ketchup (yes. Oh yessss)

1tbsp tomato purée

1/3 can of chopped tomatoes

1tsp ground coriander

1tsp garam masala

1/4 tsp turmeric

1tbsp Soya sauce

Salt to taste

1tbsp vinegar

1tbsp honey

fresh chopped coriander to garnish

For the vegetables

1 red bell pepper cut into 1″ squares

1 yellow or orange bell pepper cut into 1″ squares

6-8 mushrooms cut into quarters

200g pack of Paneer, cut into 1.5cm cubes and soaked in hot water for 10 minutes.

And this is how I made it.

Heat a wok and add the oil and add the cumin seeds until fragrant.

Then add the onions garlic ginger and chilli and sauté for five minutes.

Add the tomato ketchup, chopped tomatoes and tomato purée and cook for a further minute stirring through.

Then add the dry spices.

Cook for a further three or four minutes until the oil starts to separate from the mixture

Add the soy sauce, vinegar and honey and cook until sticky.

Once cooked remove from the walk and set aside.

This is your sauce – you will need it later

Now back to the wok.

Give it a wipe and add a little bit more oil.

Get the walk hot with the oil.

Add your peppers and sort out for a couple of minutes until they all started to spit.

Add the mushrooms and heat further once you see that these have started to take on a bit of colour in stock to lose of moisture add the paneer.

Once all of this has started to get hot, add the sauce back into the pan and stir through