Curry for comfort

This doesn’t really get any easier does it? It changes, but it doesn’t get any easier. At the start of lockdown the advice was at least simple: just stay at home. The easing of lockdown means decisions – do we go out, do we stay in. Making said decisions are not helped by the weird disconnects in government advice (we’re being encouraged to go shopping, but public transport should still be avoided – er, we don’t all have cars) and by the sense that the advice in question is dictated not so much by science as by the fact that the government is bored by the whole thing and is trying to pretend it’s gone away.


Anyway, rant over. Let’s get to the food. Last week, I felt in great need of comfort food, which for me, often means curry. In this case, paneer and spinach curry, served with home-made naan breads. Both recipes are from Meera Sodha – the naans from her first book, Made In India, and the curry from her most recent, East.  In the book the recipe is for kale rather than spinach, and in her preamble she basically says this recipe was her way of making kale edible, rather than like ‘eating hedgerow’. While it does render kale and its relatives more than palatable, I have discovered it’s even nicer made with spinach, making it more like a traditional saag curry.


First, the naan breads, as in the manner of breads, they require rising time. It’s rich dough, featuring milk and yoghurt, as well as both yeast and baking powder, although it uses plain flour rather than bread flour. Mix, knead for five minutes and leave to rise for at least an hour somewhere warm. Based on experience with this recipe, it really needs to be properly warm, not just not cold.


Then, the curry. Begin by putting your spinach in a food processor, or in my case the ever-useful Kenwood mini chopper, and processing it until finely shredded – if you’re using baby spinach, you probably don’t need to do this, and if you don’t have a chopper you could just chop it very finely.

Next, fry the paneer until golden, then set aside.


Next, heat some oil in a deep frying pan that you have a lid for (you can use the same pan you did the paneer in, if it fits this description), then fry off an onion, before adding garlic, ginger , chillies. Then add tinned tomatoes (half a tin for two) and spices (cumin, coriander, turmeric) and a little brown rise syrup – you could probably substitute honey for this. Then add the spinach in batches, stirring so it wilts down. Add coconut milk  - this is why it needs to be a deep pan – and cover.  Cook for 15 minutes.


At this point, you can start preparing the naans. Cut the dough up, roll into balls, and then roll out. Heat another frying pan – you don’t ned to add oil. When the curry has cooked for 25 minutes, add the paneer to the pan and cook for another ten  minutes to warm through, while you make the naans.
Cook for 30 seconds each side, and then a further 10 seconds on each side. Wrap in foil to keep warm while you cook the rest, and while you dish up the curry.

Naans: look at the little beauties

The curry was very good, and the naans, where, I have to say, a triumph: fluffy and delicious. Very comforting.

Paneer and saag curry: not pretty, but delicious.