Mutter Paneer

my favorite Indian-inspired dish -- at home

I love Indian food. Unfortunately, we don’t get out to eat as much these days. Partially because we live far out from our favorite restaurant. Partially because a small entree is now $17 or so and by the time you add in naan and samosas, it’s $$$. So, last year I started making my own version of my favorite dish — mutter paneer.

This is a fusion of things, as you’ll soon see. I have a good collection of spices in my pantry, but I don’t like going out and getting all the specific ingredients. I use what I have. This dish can be slightly different depending on what I have on hand, and that’s interesting. For example, this weekend I only had tomatoes canned with chipotle peppers — so it was quite bold and spicy with a different layer of flavors in there.

Another fun thing we did when we only had about a half cup of this from the night before . . . we added some leftover broccoli soup to it (along with some more cheese cubes). And it stretched it enough for two people + tasted great + allowed us to fully use our leftovers to the max.