Paneer is an Indian cottage cheese. It is used in some mouth-watering Indian dishes, and paneer bhurji is the simplest of all. You might want to make your own paneer to use in this recipe.

Ingredients

• 10oz (250g) paneer, grated¹
• 6oz (150g) bell pepper, finely chopped - using a mixture of green, red, orange and yellow bell peppers will make the dish more colourful
• 6oz (150g) onion, finely chopped
• 6oz (150g) tomatoes, finely chopped
• ½ teaspoon cumin seeds
• ½ teaspoon mustard seeds
• 1 teaspoon coriander powder
• ½ teaspoon turmeric powder
• Salt to taste
• Cooking oil to shallow fry

Method

1. Heat a little oil in a large frying pan over a medium flame. When hot, put in the cumin and mustard seeds². Add in the onion, stir and fry until starting to brown. Add the peppers, tomatoes and salt, and stir well. Put the lid on and let it cook for 5-7 minutes. When the pepper is almost cooked and the mixture is rather dry, add the paneer, coriander powder and turmeric powder. Stir it and cook for two minutes. Take it off the stove and transfer to a serving bowl. Garnish with green coriander leaves and grated paneer.

2. This makes an excellent side dish with any other Indian curry dish. Indians eat it with chapati/bread/paratha/naan/rice etc. It also makes a great filling for sandwiches, or a pizza topping.

3. Bell pepper (sometimes called capsicum) is generally not very hot - if you want your dish to be hotter, add some ground black pepper or red chilli powder when adding the cumin and coriander powder.

Feel free to experiment with other ingredients - you may want to add meat or egg, for example.

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¹ If you use homemade paneer you may not need to grate it.
² This process of warming seeds such as cumin and mustard before adding other ingredients is known as 'splitting'.