Being vegetarians we do eat a lot of paneer, but surprisingly never ate methi chaman, a dish made with fenugreek leaves and Indian cottage cheese. Every time my kids ask for either paneer tikka or paneer butter masala with vegetable biryani. I do prepare palak paneer sometimes but never prepared methi chaman. I use methi (fenugreek leaves) in dal quite often and my kids like to eat it with rice.  As I want to give my kids high protein vegetarian food, I add paneer (Indian cottage cheese) in my food very frequently.

Yesterday while chatting with my cousins on Whatsapp, my sister posted a picture of the methi chaman she prepared at her home, and then it struck my mind that we never had this dish. So I decided that I would make it for lunch today. I googled some recipes on the internet, but most of them used palak (spinach) along with methi (fenugreek leaves) and the appearance of the curry looked like palak paneer itself. I didn’t like that. I wanted it to look different than palak paneer, and I wanted to distinguish both the dishes in terms of taste. I wanted to feel the aroma and the flavor of fenugreek which is quite beneficial for health. So first, I decided not to add spinach to my curry. The second thing was I wanted to use grated paneer instead of cutting them into cubes as we do for the other curries. And then I started preparing methi chaman and it really turned out very nice. The creamy texture, richness in the taste and the fragrance of fenugreek is just tantalizing. The joy in seeing my kids and husband enjoying every bite of the food with a praise “Wow! It’s delicious Mom”, “We love it”, “You’re awesome Mom” is a true reward. My stomach was already filled with the content of seeing them enjoying my food. It’s a great feeling for a mother :D.

So I wanna share the recipe with you all, hope you guys will try and enjoy it too!

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Methi Chaman Recipe:

Heat oil in a pan and add cumin seeds to it. When the cumin seeds start sputtering add dry red chilis. Then fry it for a minute and add chopped onions to it. Once the onions are translucent, add finely chopped garlic and green chilis. Cook it for two minutes and then add grated ginger. You can add ginger garlic paste too, but I wanted the garlic to be Al dente so preferred to use it this way. Then fry it till the onions turn golden brown.

Wash the fenugreek leaves and chop them. When the onions are nicely golden brown add the finely chopped fenugreek. Like I said above I didn’t want this curry to look like palak paneer so I didn’t grind the leaves into a paste and the other reason is that I wanted the texture of methi to be authentic. And honestly, it tasted excellent that way. Whenever I use fenugreek, I like to use the soft and thin stems as well because that has got many health benefits according to Ayurveda. I saw some people throwing away the stems and using only the leaves. But I tell you, you should try to use the stems also, as it will give a better taste to your food. So I added fenugreek and sautéed it for a few minutes. When the fenugreek is half cooked, add tomato cubes. I just cut one medium sized tomato. Sauté it for two minutes. Do not wait till the tomato is cooked completely. Just add the spices. I added a pinch of turmeric, red chili powder, cumin powder, garam masala( whole spice mix powder) and salt to taste. I didn’t add coriander powder because I wanted to use fresh coriander leaves later. Mix the spices well into the fenugreek and let it fry on a slow flame.

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Grind some cashews into a paste and add it into the fenugreek. Sauté it well and let it simmer for a while. Add a tablespoon of plain yogurt to it. The yogurt helps to reduce the bitterness of fenugreek and adds a little bit of sourness to the curry. Keep the flame on low and let it cook for some time till the oil oozes out from the curry.

Then add grated paneer and finely chopped coriander leaves. Mix it well and let it cook for 5 minutes. Add a table spoon of cream to the curry. Finally add some boiled sweet corn kernels on top. I wanted to add corn to bring in some crunchiness to the curry as most of the other things we added were soft in texture and it would feel like we are just eating the gravy. And corn gave a better taste and texture to the curry. Turn off the stove. Shift the curry into a serving bowl and Methi Chaman is ready to eat. You can have it with rice or roti, it tastes delicious either way. Do try it out 😀

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