PANEER PIE!

OK, so I have had a Paneer pie in mind for a long time.  I even made some quick notes to remind myself of what I had in mind.  "copious shallots/onions....garlic...toasted pine nuts/pepitas....golden raisins....cumin, curry".

I wanted a rich, sweet, earthy, spicy dish.  Here's what I came up with.

First, I soaked some golden raisins in boiling water to rehydrate/plump.

 

I sliced several small yellow onions and drizzled them with kecap manis. 

 

These went into the Romertopf and into the oven around 400 to roast until melty and sweet.

 

 

In a large saute pan, I toasted 5 oz or so of unsalted, raw pepitas until crisp, browned and starting to release some oil.

For the rest of the filling, I diced butternut squash (just the bulb from a largish squash) and two large carrots.  Got these sauteeing in olive oil and the remaining oil from the pepitas.

Meanwhile, I made a spice blend.  Most plentiful to least, I used cumin, coriander seed, black pepper, hint of both cinnamon and allspice.  Total volume, maybe 3 tbsp.  To the spice mix, I added 5 or so cloves of garlic, smashed and minced, a small knob of ginger peeled and minced, and these weird yellow chiles I got from a coworker minced very fine (heat-wise you could use thai dragons or something similar).

I also got some tomatoes ready.  I had just processed a huge batch of tomatoes several ways:  for this I used both smoked tomatoes and oven roasted tomatoes.  I squished them manually and roughly chopped the bigger chunks that remained.

Once the squash and carrot started to get some color, I added the onions.

When the onions came out of the oven, they were super sweet and had released a ton of liquid.  I added the melted onions and their liquid to the pan and let simmer

Let that simmer for a short while then added the tomatoes, spice blend and plumped golden raisins.  Let everything simmer until much of the liquid was evaporated.  Added the pepitas and let cook 5 minutes or so to blend flavors.

Finally, I added the cubed paneer (12 oz) and cooked for two minutes or so.  Tasted, adjusted seasoning, and cooled.

I used my standard shortening pastry for the bottom and the butter pastry for the tops.  1/3 filling in each pie and baked in the Breville until crusty and brown.