Paneer Khurchan - a Chef Special

This time I opted the recipe from my favorite Chef's book Kadai Cooking, a book must for any cooking-lover. This is a Cottage Cheese or Paneer recipe, went perfect with the plain nun. I & R found our another favorite dish, after having this delicious food in our dinner of two. 

For the record, here is the original recipe I found in Kadai Cooking by Sanjeev Kapoor, a Chef whom I admire a lot & sometime try to follow his cooking.

Ingredients

•Cottage cheese (paneer),cut into thick strips 250 grams

•Oil 2 tablespoons

•Cumin seeds 1 teaspoon

•Garlic paste 2 teaspoons

•Green capsicum, cut into thick strips 2 medium

•Tomato,seeded and thick strips 2 medium

•Onion  thick strips 2 medium

•Tomato puree 3 tablespoons

•Salt to taste

•Red chilli powder 1 teaspoon

•Lemon juice 1 teaspoon

•Dried fenugreek leaves (kasoori methi) 1 teaspoon

Method:

1. Heat the oil in a thick-bottomed kadai; add the cumin seeds.
2. When they begin to change colour, add the garlic paste, capsicums, tomatoes and onions and sauté for five or six minutes.
3. Add the paneer, tomato purée, salt and chilli powder. Sauté for a while till the paneer begins to stick to the pan. 
4. Scrape the paneer off the bottom of the pan and sauté for a while longer till the paneer is dark brown and mashed. 
5. Stir in the lemon juice and kasuri methi and serve immediately.

Baked Paneer Cube (different approach)

I have tried the baked paneer in different way this time. This time also, it came out very well.

Ingredients:

1 cup bread crumbs

1 onion

1 tomato

1 chilly

1 tb spoon salt

1 tb spoon vinegar

4 Paneer cubes

1. Preheat cooker;

2. Combine bread crumbs, salt, onion, tomato, chilly and vinegar in a food processor and process until finely ground. Transfer mixture to the shallow rectangular dish.

3. Dip the Paneer cubes into the bread crumbs mixture. Arrange cubes in a tiffin box. Place the tiffin box in cooker (there should be a little water in cooker before placing the box).

4. Bake 8-10 minutes, until crust is golden brown and Paneer is soft.

5. You can fry the cubes, in a kadai by spraying a little oil, for a different taste.

6. Serve with tomato ketchup

Baked Paneer Curry

As I have mentioned in my earlier blog on Baked Paneer, that some more experiment will be done on baking paneer, so here is my new recipe on Baked Paneer.

Ingredients:

For Baking Paneer:
Paneer - 100 gm
Flour - 5 tb spoon 
Salt to taste
Turmeric powder - 1 tea-spoon
black pepper powder - 1/2 tea-spoon
oil to fry

For Curry:
Bay leaves - 2
Elaichi - 4-5
Potato - 3
Onion - 2 (big)
Garlic - 1
Ginger paste- 1 tb spoon
Jeera Powder - 1 tea spoon
Dhania Powder - 2 tea spoon
Chilly Powder - 1 tea spoon
Sugar - 1/2 tb spoon (if you like sweet taste)
Salt to taste
Oil

Method:

To make Baked Paneer:
1. Mash Paneer with salt and black pepper powder to make a smooth batter.

2. Heat the pressure cooker for 5 mins. Grease and dust the baking container with oil & flour.
3. Pour the batter in it and place the tightly closed container in the cooker after adding a little water. Keep the cooker on low flame.
4. After 20mins turn off the heat & set aside the container.
5. Take out baked content out of container and cut it in pieces in your desired shape.

6. Mix flour, water, turmeric powder to make a paste. Coat each piece with the paste and dip fry in oil.
7. The koftas are ready.

8. You can have the koftas with Pudina chatni or Tomato sauce. Or you can make the curry.

To make Curry:
1. Cut potato,onion,tomato.
2. Heat d remaining oil in kadai and add bay leaves and  elaichi. Add garlic followed by onions.
3. Saute over medium heat till onions become soft,then add potato pieces.
4. When the potatoes are light brown add tomatoes. Saute it over low heat. Aftr 2-3min add ginger paste and masalas. Adjst salt.
5. Saute. After 2 min add sufficient water acc to the curry amount you want.
6. Cover and lower d heat. Cook for 8min. 
7. When water starts boiling and the potato become soft, add the koftas.
8. Cover the kadai. After 5min highr the flame and add dhania patta. 
9. After 3min turn off the heat & the curry is ready.
10. Serve hot with nun, chapati or rice.

Paneer-Drumstick Kabab

I was going through Sanjeev Kapoor's recipes, there I found the Bhutta Seekh Kabab recipe. While going through the recipe, my friend called me & told me that next day there was 'potluck' in his office. So he asked me to prepare some veg starter. As I am very much fond of cooking & always try to do some experiment, I wanted to prepare something different as well as tasty & should look nice.

But while I went to buy the ingredients, I could not find the Corn, the main ingredient. So thought to modify Mr. Kapoor's recipe for my friend's potluck party. The result was surprisingly very good. Everyone loved the starter and asked him for the recipe.

So here it is. I hope you will enjoy this a lot.

Ingredients:

Drumstick,cut into inch pieces
Cottage cheese (paneer) 250 grams
Green chillies,chopped 5-6
Ginger-garlic paste 1 teaspoon
Fresh coriander leaves,chopped 3 tablespoons
Ginger,chopped 1 inch piece
red chilli powder 1 teaspoon
Garam masala powder 1 tablespoon
Chaat masala 2 teaspoons
Salt to taste
Oil

Method:

1. Boil the drumsticks in sufficient water with salt, so that the pieces become soft. Drain and cool.
2. Place the cottage cheese in a deep bowl and mash well.
3. Add the green chillies, ginger-garlic paste, fresh coriander, ginger, chilli powder, garam masala powder, chaat masala, and salt.
4. Knead well to make a smooth dough.
5. Divide the dough into sixteen portions. Shape into elongated one-and-a-half-inch thick kabab. Insert a drumstick piece into each kabab in such a way that two inches of the sticks out.
6. Heat a tawa. Place the kababs on it, drizzle a little oil all around and shallow-fry till golden brown. Turn the kabab over frequently so that they brown evenly.
7. Serve hot with sauce (See below for the sauce recipe).

Preparing Sauce:

1. Blend 5 tomatoes & take the juice out.
2. Heat one tablespoon oil in a pan and saute.
3. Add tomato juice and tomato ketchup. Cook for a minute.
4. Add vinegar and red chilli powder.
5. Add salt,sugar and mix well. Remove from heat. Set aside to cool.

Baked Paneer Cube

I am kind of working on this recipe. The main recipe I found in some website (don't remember the name; SORRY!). Tonight I just tried with Paneer (modified the recipe!) which I brought for dinner. Going to experiment with different ingredients soon!!!!

Ingredients:

1 cup bread crumbs

1 tb spoon salt

1 tb spoon vinegar

3/4 cup milk

4 Paneer cubes

1. Preheat cooker;

2. Combine bread crumbs, salt and vinegar in a food processor and process until finely ground. Transfer mixture to the shallow rectangular dish.

3. Dip the Paneer cubes into the milk and then into the bread crumbs mixture. Arrange cubes in a tiffin box. Place the tiffin box in cooker (there should be a little water in cooker before placing the box).

4. Bake 8-10 minutes, until crust is golden brown and cheese is soft.

5. Serve with tomato ketchup