Method
Wash the spinach thoroughly. Blanch in boiling water for a couple of minutes. Drain the hot water immediately, and run cold water over the blanched palak. This will help retain the wonderful green color of the veggie. Otherwise, the spinach color tends to fade into a yellowish hue. Allow the drained palak to cool down fully.
In a kadahi, pour in the oil (2 tbsp), allow it to heat up, and add pureed garlic paste.
Fry till the garlic has fried fully, oil has separated, and some garlic starts sticking to the sides.
Lower the flame, add a tbsp of water and stir and scrape the kadahi to remove any sticking garlic.
Add the palak (now pureed) to the pan. Stir thoroughly, and allow the mix to come to a boil. Also add salt (to taste) at this point.
Add a tbsp of milk to the pan. This further helps retain the color, while balancing out the strong flavours of the spinach. Stir for a minute.
Add cubed cottage cheese to the kadahi. Mix thoroughly. Let cook on sim flame for about 5 minutes. The dish is almost ready.
A note about the Paneer: It is a good trick to immerse the cubed paneer in very hot water, for about 5 minutes before adding to the kadahi. This ensures softness of the paneer is retained. Also, while some folks like to golden fry the paneer cubes before adding, our family likes it unfried. In fact, we find that it makes a perfectly good paneer a little tacky and chewy.
After removing the dish to a serving bowl, we like to tamper it with a little oil & Kashmiri mirch powder. This gives a lot of flavor and color to the dish.
A note
Note: some people prefer to add a little chilly powder, julienned ginger & diced fresh green peppers to the dish. That, I feel, should be as per personal preference.
