Paneer Pasanda

Agar aap apne pati ko bahut pyar karte hein tou unhe Paneer Pasanda bana ke khilaiye :)
With this motto I made Paneer Pasanda for DH when he was coming home after a hectic tour...and I baked  garlic naan at home....let me let you..paneer pasanda and garlic naan are deadly combination!

Ingredient:
1 lb paneer cut in big triangles of same size

For the filling:
1 tbsp crumbled paneer
2 tbsp khoya
1 tsp rasins
1 tsp almond powder
1/4 tsp black pepper
a pinch salt
few mint leaves cut in very very small strips

1 tbsp all purpose flour
oil to fry

For the gravy,
1.5 tbsp almond powder
3 tbsp whipping cream (or malai)
1 tsp crushed black pepper
1" cinnamon stick
1 black cardamom
4-5 cloves
1 bay leaf
salt
1 cup milk

For the filling, mix everything and keep aside. Take all purpose flour and mix in water to make a paste of pouring consistency. Now take paneer triangles and slit them so that the one end of the triangle is still attached. Fill the filling carefully inside the paneer and dip in all purpose flour paste and deep fry them. Take them out in a tissue paper to soak extra oil.

For the curry, there are tons of ways...some make spicy tomato based gravy, some make while gravy with cauliflower paste and some make while gravy with cream. My favorite one is white creamy gravy with almond flavor. Take all the masalas (cloves, bay leaf, cinnamon, black pepper) and grind them well. Mix it in the whipping cream and heat it in a pan. When one boil comes, put almond powder and milk. Boil it for 4-5 more minutes. Add salt to taste. Adjust milk as per the consistency of gravy you require. Finally add fried paneer triangles and serve hot with garlic naan.

How to make Tandoori masala?

My good friend Surabhi asked this question. Surabhi, there are two ways to make Tandoori masala. Easier way: buy it from the market and use it :)
Difficult way--
Ingredients:
2 tbsp coriander seeds
2 tbsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp fenugreek
1 3" cinnamon stick
1 tsp dry garlic powder
1 tsp dry ginger powder
10-12 cloves
1 tsp black pepper
2 black cardamom
1/2 tsp nutmeg (Jaifal)
1 tsp mace(Javitri)
5-6 dry red chillies
1 tsp red or orange food color
Salt (you can add it now or later when you are actually using the masala for marination)

Grind all the above ingredients to a fine powder, sieve it and store in an airtight container. 

Grilled Paneer tikka

When this post had to follow the tandoori chicken post since I made this for myself when I grilled chicken for DH. I used the same marination as in the tandoori chicken .

Ingredients:
250 gram paneer cut in 1.5 inch cubes
1 cup colorful bell peppers cut in 1.5 inch squares
1 cup onions cut in 1.5 inch squares.
Few skewers

Put oven on broil. Marinate paneer and bell peppers overnight. For marination, see tandoori chicken . Put paneer, bell peppers and onions in skewers. Grill these in the top most rack for 8-10 minutes. Turn and grill for another 3-4 minutes. You want the edges to become black. Eat hot with green chutney.

Tandoori Chicken

I rarely cook non-veg at home. Being vegetarian myself, its not very motivating to cook for my DH and not able to eat myself! However, I have already cooked this recipe few times at home. My friend Preeti once made it and posted its pics in her blog. DH went crazy seeing the pics and I decided to give it a try and it was a great success. Recently DH came back from Germany trip so I made it again for him and made some tandoori paneer for myself in the same marination (recipe coming soon). So here I am basically reproducing Preeti's recipe:

Ingredients:
1 lb chicken legs (no skin)
salt
lemon
2 tsp ginger garlic paste
1/2 cup yogurt
handful of coriander leaves
1 tbsp oil
1 tbsp Tandoori masala
2-3 green chillies


Wash and pat dry chicken pieces. Make some slips in the pieces. Put some salt and lemon and let chicken pieces soak salt and lemon for 30 minutes. In the meantime mix all the ingredients in a grinder and marinate chicken in this paste for 5-6 hours or overnight. Now you can grill it. But we are not allowed to use grill in our apartment building so I have to use oven. Preheat oven at 350 degrees. Grease a tray and put chicken pieces in the tray and put it in oven for 45 minutes. If you want more spicy tandoori chicken, you can rub some chicken masala on marinated chicken pieces and then put them in oven. After 45 minutes turn the pieces and bake for another 10 minutes. Now to get the burn effect at places, put the oven on broiler and put chicken pieces in the top most shelf just for 4-5 minutes and remove them. Serve with green chutney, lemon and onions soaked in vinegar.

The best Chocolate Lava Cake

Am I exaggerating when I am saying that I made the best Chocolate lava cake?? Not at all. You have to taste it to believe me. And I got it right in the third attempt. I cannot wait to show the pictures so here are the pictures. This is how my lava cake looks..

Here is the closer look at the outer crust...soft yet crispy..

And best part...look at the lava of chocolate oozing from inside...isn't it perfect!!!! It was heavenly...really...

So here is the story behind the lava cake. I happened to see this ad for Domino's choco lava cake on you tube and wanted to eat right away. Sent my DH to few Domino stores here in Kingston and got to know that these lava cakes haven't been introduced in Canada as of yet. But I had to eat it so tried making and failed in first two attempts. I was not getting as gooey center as in the ad. Finally I made ganache and inserted inside every ramekin while baking the cake and...viola! Got the perfect lava cake. So here is the recipe for making 4 medium sized chocolate lava cakes.

Ingredients:
For cake:
200 gram dark chocolate
1 stick (or 1/2 cup) unsalted butter
3 large eggs
5 tbsp all purpose flour
1/4th cup sugar
A small pinch salt

For ganache:
2 ounce chocolate
2 tbsp heavy whipping cream
a pinch sugar
1 tsp butter


We need to make ganache well ahead of time. For ganache, melt chocolate in microwave and mix well with the whipping cream, butter and pinch sugar. Refrigerate it for couple of hours so that it becomes hard. Now make 4 rounds of this and keep it in freezer so that it does not melt.

For the cake:
Put chocolate in double boiler over hot water and melt it. Add butter and stir until smooth. In a separate bowl whisk eggs and sugar for 8-10 minutes. Add flour and salt and mix well. Now put this mixture in melted chocolate and butter and fold in until mix. Generously butter the ramekins. Pour this mixture in 4 ramekins. Keep these ramekins in refrigerator for 30 minutes. Now heat oven at 375 F. Take the ramekins out of refrigerator and and ganache from freezer. Insert one ball in the center of each ramekin. Bake for 15 minutes. Let the ramekins cool for 15 minutes. Now run knife on the sides of ramekins and gently remove the cake. Best way is to put the serving plate on top of a ramekin (after you have run the knife on the edges). Now bring it upside down and pat the back of ramekin and gently remove the ramekin. Sprinkle powdered sugar on top. Serve hot.

Lauki (Bottle gourd) ka kofta

Again thanks to Madhuri for bringing such fresh lauki. I had many dishes in mind with lauki but finally I settled for Lauki ke kofte. The trick is to make plain lauki kofta in a spicy gravy. Here is the recipe.

Ingredients:

For koftas
1 medium size lauki
1/4 cup besan (gram flour)
1/2 tsp red chilli powder
a pinch salt
Oil for frying

For gravy:
1 onion
6-7 garlic cloves
2 tomatoes
2 tsp oil
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
1 tsp coriander powder
1 tsp garam masala
salt to taste
1/2 tsp red chili powder (or as per your taste)
Few coriander leaves to garnish

Grate lauki and add a pinch salt and keep aside for 5 minutes. After 5 minutes, sqeeze grated lauki to remove  water. Now add besan bit by bit until the lauki starts binding. Add some chili powder and mix well. Make big lemon size rounds and fry them. Now keep them on a tissue paper to absorb extra oil. Your koftas will look like this:

Now grind onion and garlic together and keep aside. Grind tomatoes and keep aside. Heat oil in a wok/pan/kadai. When oil is hot, add cumin seeds. When seeds crackle, add onion garlic paste. Add some salt, turmeric powder, coriander powder, chili powder and fry until the paste leaves oil. Now add grind tomatoes for another 6-7 minutes. Now add garam masala and saute for 2 more minutes. Add water and let it come to a boil. Add koftas carefully so that they do not break. Cook i ton sim for 5 minutes and garnish with coriander leaves. It goes best with rice or roti.

Crispy spicy eggplant

Last week DH was not home so I was being lazy in cooking. I was cooking food for my infant DS and was eating the same stuff! One day I cooked daal-rice for both of us. I was frying some papad to eat with daal-rice and I realized that papad is to boring and I need something better to spice it up. I looked into my fridge and fresh small eggplants brought my Madhuri were lying there. Since my pan with oil was still hot so I quickly cut the eggplant in small rounds and fried it. And then made it spicy adding some masalas. If you are watching calories then this is not for you since it is fried eggplant. But I would say that its okay to forget calories once in a while, especially when the final result is so crispy, spicy and mouth watering! So here is the simple recipe:

Ingredients:
4-5 small eggplants (cut in rounds)
oil for frying
1 tbsp oil
1 tsp ginger garlic paste
salt to taste
4-5 whole red chilies
1/2 inch tamarind soaked.

Fry eggplants in a pan with hot oil and keep them in a tissue paper so that the extra oil is absorbed.
In another pan, heat 1 tbsp oil. When oil is hot add whole red chilies and ginger garlic paste. Now add salt and fried eggplants. Saute them for few minutes and then add soaked tamarind and saute it for few more minutes. Serve hot with roti or rice.

Stuffed bhindi (okra) with besan

As I mentioned in my last post that my friend Madhuri got me lots of veggies from Indian store in Toronto. She got me very very fresh okra and I love okra in any form. This time I decided to make stuffed okra with a twist of besan (gram flour). And then I freeze it for a week as my DH was in Germany and I didn't want to relish it alone! When my DH came back, I served it with daal-rice. I simply re-heated it on my stove. Surprisingly it was very fresh even after it stayed in freezer for a week. So here is the recipe of this delicious dish. Finally decorate with some coriander leaves and serve hot (unless your hubby is out of town! In that case freezing it and reheating before serving is fine too :)).

Ingredients:
1/2 lb okra (slit and head removed)
3 tbsp oil
1 tsp crushed roasted cumin
1 tsp coriander powder
1 tsp fennel powder
2 tsp kasoori methi
1/2 tsp amchur powder
red chili powder to taste
salt to taste
2 tbsp besan (gram flour)
2 tbsp fresh coriander leaves

In a bowl, mix cumin, coriander powder, fennel powder, kasoori methi, amchur powder, red chili and salt in 1 tbsp oil. Now stuff okra with this mixture and leave it for 30 minutes. Now take a pan and heat
2 tbsp oil. Add the besan and fry for few seconds and add stuffed okra in it. Cook on sim for 10 minutes with lid covered. The mositure from okra will be trapped inside and make okra soft. Now remove the lid and cook for another 20 minutes or until the okra is crisp. Keep stirring occasionally.

Crunchy parwal dry

Well, you must be thinking why so many parwal recipes suddenly! Yes, you guessed it right. I had some good stock of parwal at home, thanks to my good friend Madhuri who shopped lots of Indian veggies for me from Toronto. So needless to say, next few recipes will be all various kinds of veggies. Anyway, this parwal recipe is very simple and yet very delicious and goes very well with parathas or with rice-daal. And here is the simple recipe:

Ingredents:
8 parwals cut in 4 pieces lengthwise (don't peel them)
1 onion chopped length wise
2 tbsp oil
1 tsp chana daal
a pinch asafoetida
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
4 whole red chillies
salt to taste
1/2 tsp amchur powder

Heat oil in a pan. Add mustard seeds and asafoetida. When mustard seeds cracle, add chana daal. After 1 minute, add whole red chillies. Now add onions and salt and fry well. Put parwal pieces and cover the lid and keep it on medium-low for 5-8 minutes. Remove the lid and let parwal cook slowly at sim. It takes long time (30-40 minutes) but makes parwal really crispy. Finally add the amchur powder and cook for another minute. Serve hot.

Parwal ki Mithai

Initially I wanted to name this post as "Dessert Disaster"! Thats because when I started making it, I had multiple failures. My knife was very wide so while I was suppose to make just a slit in parwal and remove the seeds, I ended up breaking every parwal in two!!! Then when I was preparing the filling, my khoya burned a bit- thanks to my DS. Still I decided to make this and take as best photo as  I could. When my DH came back from Germany, I happened to offer this sweet to him and to my surprise he liked it..and liked it so much that finished all in 24 hours!  I simply followed Sanjeev Kapoor's recipe for this. So if you want to make a better 'Parwal ka meetha' then please follow his recipe, which in short is as follows (my version of his recipe):

Ingredients:
6 Parwal
2 cup lime water
1/2 cup sugar
1 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp clarified butter
1 tsp chopped almonds
1 tsp chopped pistachios
1 tsp chopped cashews
1/2 cup khoya

Take 6 parwals. Peel them, slit them and remove seeds. And if you happen to break them into half, then thats fine too. Soak them in lime water for 4 hours. I used around 1/2 lemon in 2 cups of water. Drail parwal from lime water and boil them in plain water for 10 minutes. Drain the water from Parval. Now make 2 string sugar syrup using 1/2 cup sugar and 1/2 cup water. Boil parval in this syrup for 10 minutes and drain them. Put these parwal pieces in a nice looking plate. Now for stuffing, chop almonds, pistachios and cashews. In a pan, heat ghee and fry them. Now add 1/2 cup khoya and fry until pink. Add 1 tbsp sugar and cardamom powder. Put this stuffing carefully in parwal pieces and chill them in refrigerator.

And, here the the pretty pictures :)

Chili Paneer

Chilli-paneer is a mouth watering Indo-chinese dish. A fresh paneer cooked with Indian spices in Chinese style!!!! And compliment this spicy dish with cream of tomato soup and french baguette sprinkled with olive oil and shredded cheese.

Ingredients:
1 lb Paneer cut in 1 inch cubes
1 egg
3 tbsp all purpose flour
1/2 tsp ginger garlic paste
a pinch salt
oil to fry

2 tbsp oil
1 cup various colors bell peppers cut in 1 inch pieces
1 onion cut in big pieces
3 green chillies chopped
2 tbsp minced garlic
1/2 tsp cumin seed
2 tbsp soya sauce
1 tsp chilli sauce
1 tbsp white vinegar
1 tbsp chilli-tomato ketchup
1-2 tsp lemon juice (as per your taste)
salt to taste

Heat oil for frying in a pan. In a bown, mix egg, all purpose flour, ginger garlic paste and salt. Dip paneer pieces in this mixture and fry till golden. Now in a separate pan, heat 2 tbsp oil. Once oil is hot, put cumin seeds. Now add minced garlic. When it is golden add chopped chillies and onion.  Saute it for a minute and add bell peppers. Now add salt, chilli sauce, soya sauce, vinegar and ketchup. Stir occasionally. Now add the lemon juice. Finally add the fried paneer pieces and saute it for 2 minutes. Juicy chili paneer is ready. Serve this HOT dish hot!