Don’t be intimidated when you see the list of ingredients for this recipe, it’s a lot easier than it looks and extremely satisfying if you enjoy rich, Indian food. If you cook fairly frequently, you probably have most of these ingredients already. Otherwise, a quick trip to the Indian grocery store will get you most of what you need. If you want to be truly authentic, you can make the paneer yourself and make your own tomato sauce out of fresh tomatoes. If you’re like me and want to make this after you come home pretty late from work, you can use the short cuts I suggest =).

Ingredients

2 cups of fried paneer
1 15 oz can tomato sauce
1 cup of heavy cream, more if desired
1/2 stick of butter
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 cinnamon stick
4 cardamom pods
1/2 teaspoon of mustard seeds
1/2 teaspoon of garam masala
1/2 teaspoon of turmeric powder
1/2 teaspoon of cumin powder
1/2 teaspoon of red chili powder
1 teaspoon of coriander powder
1 teaspoon of honey (any kind)
1 teaspoon of salt
2 teaspoons of dried fenugreek
2 teaspoons of tandoori masala
2 teaspoons of sugar
2 teaspoons of ginger-garlic paste
1/4 cup of chopped red onion
1 medium tomato, chopped
1 handful of cilantro, chopped

Directions

Melt the butter and comibine with the olive oil on medium heat. Add the ginger-garlic paste, cardamom, cinnamon, mustard seeds, tomato, red onion, and half the amount of cilantro. Saute for about 5 minutes, then add the garam masala, tumeric powder, cumin powder, red chili powder, and coriander powder. Stir and saute for another 2 minutes. Add the tomato sauce, then the heavy cream, fenugreek, salt, sugar, tandoori powder, and honey. Adjust amount of heavy cream based on creamyness or color desired. Cook for about 5 minutes, then add the paneer. Lower heat to medium-low and cook for another 5 minutes. Take off heat and garnish with cilantro. Serve with warm rotis or rice.

Variation

Saute 2-inch pieces of chicken breast in the butter and olive oil (until almost completely cooked) before adding other ingredients to turn this into chicken makhani. As always, make sure the chicken is completely cooked before serving.