Paneer Soup!

Getting back into the cooking grove here.... I decided to go for something a bit light this evening and made some spicy paneer soup. This ended up being some late night bacon since I bought all the ingredients for the soup at the grocery store, and then went to the Indian market for the paneer, but they were out! No worries, fresh is better even if it means I eat at midnight.

To start, I made paneer from 1 gallon of whole milk. After the liquid sufficiently drained from the cheese, I spread it out on paper towels to dry further. Then I dusted with flour to further dry things up before frying ghee along with 2 tsp of cumin seed, several curry leaves, and a few cloves of garlic.

Once the paneer got some nice browning, I tossed in about 6 chopped jalapeños peppers and cooked down a bit further, along with 1 tsp turmeric and 1 tsp chile powder. See:



From here it is almost done. I had 1 28 oz can of whole peeled tomatoes which I put in a large bowl and squeezed up with my hands. I added this to the pot along with a good bit of salt. Letting it heat up and cook down for about 4 minutes (give or take several minutes) while I chopped up some cilantro for later. Once it seemed reasonable, I added about two and half cups of whey leftover from the cheese making. This is more satisfying than adding water or broth. Mmmmm. Once things got altogether in the pot, I check the salt, add the cilantro and enjoy! It actually makes me think of an Indian version of shakshouka with paneer replacing the eggs. I just need some help eating all this food...