One of the most popular vegetarian dishes in Indian restaurants, this thing is really easy to make and for some reason loved by most vegetarians.
A lot of recipes are going to call on the use of whole spices. I don’t really see the point of using whole spices if you’re also using the same spices in powdered form, namely Garam Masala.
There are two big challenges in making this gravy. One, you need a mixer grinder. It just doesn’t work without it.
And second, you need a bunch of cashews. Buy the cheaper, broken cashews or ‘tukda kaju’, as you are going to blend them in the mixie anyway, and no one cares about their aesthetic appeal when they’re a paste. I also used frozen peas as they had been languishing in my freezer for months.
Finally, I just used store bought paneer chunks. You can make your own paneer but I don’t have the time nor patience for that. You can also substitute the paneer with tofu for a complete vegan dish but then again it’s up to you.
In my recipe I went step by step, grinding each base ingredient down in a mixie as I cooked. That is, I separately ground down the onions and cooked them, and while they were cooking, I ground down the tomatoes, and so on. You could obviously cook the base gravy and then cool it down, and then run it through the mixie to make it into a paste. However, I was running low on time so I did them separately. You can do it whichever way you please.
Now, to bring the restaurant charm into your home, let’s go to the kitchen.