My Potato, Tomato and Panir Curry

I am trying to learn to make better curries, I follow several Indian bloggers and I although I am still a bit ‘basic’ with my spice knowledge, my dishes are getting better!!!

I made one the other day, actually, I had my in-laws for dinners, and they told me that curry was fine, as long as it wasn’t spicy. I like a bit of spice, but for this one I didn’t add chilli (it is in the ingredients, please add it, if you like!).

I served it with Basmati rice and home-made naan bread.

My Potato, Tomato and Panir Curry

Ingredients

2 tablespoon rice bran oil

1 garlic clove; finely chopped

half tsp grated fresh ginger

half tsp ground coriander

half teaspoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon ground turmeric

1 cup Italian tomato passata

1 cup water

3 potatoes, peeled and cubed

1 carrot, sliced

1 cup cream (or coconut cream, for a vegan version)

1 block panir, cubed (or tofu, for a vegan version)

1 green chilli (optional)

1 teaspoon ground masala

2 tablespoon chopped fresh coriander

Serves 6

Heat the oil and fry the garlic and ginger for one minute. Add the ground coriander, cumin, turmeric and fry for 30 seconds. Add the passata and a cup of water, the potatoes and carrot. Cover and simmer for 20 minutes. Add the cream, and after 5 minutes the panir. Idieally you should fry the panir first, so that it doesn’t break, but mine was very firm, and I didn’t need to fry it.

Here I just added the cream

In the meantime the naan dough is rising

Shaping the Naan bread

At this point you can also add a fresh hot chilli, (or two?) cut, if you like the curry hot! I didn’t, but for more aroma I added 1 tsp of the masala curry powder my friend Mahendra Motibhai - Patel from Fiji gave me. The package is great and the spice mixture smells highly aromatic and fresh.

Cook for 5 more minutes, or unti the potatoes and carrots are cooked. At the end add the fresh coriander and serve.

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