Paneer Parantha

With wify +Divya Upadhyay out for a month long holiday, a forced married bachelors have all the kitchen to themselves to make whatever mess they can, cook whatever they want to and still not get raised eyebrows. Isn’t that every married man’s dream – Not get raised eyebrows.

One such fine morning, woke up and a good friend showed me the Garma Garam Wada Pav she had early morning and made me dig deep into my cooking mind to decide what to have for breakfast and tease her back. I think I took the challenge little too far and ended up winning( I guess).

End Product: Paneer Parantha, Lassi, Chai, White Butter (Home Made) and Dahi.


Here is the recipe of Paneer Parantha!!

Ingredients:

• Fresh Paneer (Indian Cottage Cheese) – 100gm
• Onion – 1 medium
• Green Chilli – 1 or 2 (to taste)
• Coriander Powder – 2 TSP
• Garam Masala – ¾ TSP
• Red Chilli Powder – ½ TSP (To Taste)
• Salt – 1 TSP
• Garlic Powder, Ginger Powder, Asafetida (Hing), Black Pepper Powder –for flavoring
• Chopped coriander leaves if you like
• Carom Seeds (Ajwain) – to taste
• Aata (Wheat Floor) Dough, Fresh s good.
• Oil to Fry the Parantha
• A flat pan (Tawa) to cook/bake paranthas

I already made my dough and mixture before the thought of sharing it came up. so pls excuse / ask me for procedure. Keep aside the Wheat Dough.

Finely chop Onion and Green Chilies. Crush Paneer into a bowl and mix with all remaining dry ingredients above. Nicely mix them together. The mixture will look like the one in image.

Take a small piece of Wheat dough and make a ball of it. Flatten it a little and put some mixture on one center of the flattened dough.

Lift the sides slowly and cover it like a dumpling ball. Close the top nicely and gently press it down by patting over it slowly. Use dry flour to keep it dry. Use the roller to flatten the dough into a circular shape like a tortilla. Make sure you don’t use heavy hands and use enough dry flour to not let the dough get stuck on the flat board(Chakla).

Roll it nicely to a 8-10” pan sized tortilla.

Check the pan, if it is hot enough transfer the tortialla to the pan and bake it from both sides.

Fry it using little bit of oil on both sides. Some people like it un-fried and eat it with butter/ghee. Do as you prefer.

If your mixture is wet, while adding it to the dough add a little bit of dry wheat flour in it. It will absorb the moisture and help prevent the dough from breaking.

End result. Yum Yum paneer Parantha.

Use some white/yellow butter to serve it with Chai/Lassi/Pickle/Dahi. whatever your hungry tummy craves for.


Bon Appetite!!

Tips:

The quality of your parantha will depend on three main factors

• How well soft/hard the aata is. I prefer a little tighter dough for Paneer Paranthas.
• Is your mixture wet? There is a work around if it is so, I’ll tell later in the post.
• Is your pan hot enough? Wave your hand slowly about 4-5 inches of the pan, if you feel it hot enough to bake the parantha. Use it. (we need not too cold, not too hat – releasing black smoke)
• Accidents do happen. Sometimes parantha’s break, sometimes, the dough don’t come nicely,  don’t get disheartened. The most common reason is wet mixture

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Bharvan Baingan - Stuffed Eggplants

Here's another one for the Eggplant lovers... a recipe of Bharvan Baingan with a couple of twists.

What you need:

• 6 Baby Eggplants
• 1 Big Red Onion
• 2 Garlic Cloves
• 1 TBSP Coriander seeds (Dhaniya) 
• 1 TSP Mustard seeds
• 1 TBSP Fennel seeds (Saunf)
• 1/2 TSP Fenugreek seeds (Methi)
• 1 TBSP Cumin seeds (Jeera)
• 1 TSP Onion Seeds (Kalounji)
• 2 Dry Red Chilies
• Salt - to taste
• 1 TSP Mango Powder (Amchur)
• 1 TSP Lemon Juice
• 6 TBSP Mustard Oil 

Dry roast all the dry spices (except Amchur, Salt, and Onion Seeds) on a low flame until a nice aroma comes out from them. Let the spice mix cool a bit and then grind it to a fine powder. Finely chop half of the red onion and garlic cloves. Heat 1 TSP of oil in a pan and add garlic. Saute it on a low flame until it turns light brown. Add onions and saute until they become translucent. In a bowl, mix the onions and garlic with the spice powder that we prepared. Add Amchur, Salt to taste, Lemon Juice, and 2 TBSP Oil. Give it a good mix. The oil and lemon juice help in binding the stuffing so that it doesn't fall out of the eggplants later.

Wash the eggplants and slit them partially into quarters. Stuff the eggplants well with the Masala that we prepared. Cut the other half of the red onion into long slices.

Heat the remaining mustard oil in a non-stick pan. When the oil is hot, add onion seeds, and let them crackle a bit. Add the eggplants one by one and arrange them in a way so that each eggplants gets enough space to cook. Do not clutter the pan with too many eggplants. Now add the sliced onions around the eggplants and let them cook on a low flame. Keep turning the eggplants in between to make sure that all the sides get cooked. It might take around 30-45 mins for the eggplants to get cooked completely.

Serve them hot with Lachha Paranthas/Chapatis. You may even have them with rice!

Dum Aaloo (Punjabi style)

Potatoes are everyone's favorite and there are loads of yummy dishes that you can prepare using them. One of the yummy dishes is Dum Aaloo, which is prepared by using baby potatoes. We prepared it the Punjabi style yesterday and they turned out real nice - spicy and sour!

Here's the recipe...

Ingredients:

• Baby potatoes: 10-12
• Red onions: 2 big
• Tomatoes: 3-4
• Garlic: 2 buds
• Green chillies: 2-3
• Curd: 1 small bowl
• Cardamom (Elaichi): 2-3
• Cinnamon (Dalchini): 1 stick
• Cloves (Laung): 2-3
• Cumin (Jeera) seeds: 1 TSP
• Red Chilly Powder: 1/2 TSP
• Coriander (Dhaniya) powder: 1/2 TSP
• Turmeric (Haldi) powder: 1/2 TSP
• Garam Masala: 1/2 TSP
• Salt (to taste)
• Coriander leaves (to garnish)
• Vegetable oil (enough to deep fry the potatoes)

Procedure:

Peel the potatoes and keep them soaked in salty water for half an hour. If the size of the potatoes if big, halve them. Heat oil in a pan and deep fry the potatoes till they turn very light golden brown. Keep the potatoes aside.

Blend onions, tomatoes, and garlic and green chilly to a coarse paste. Beat the curd in a bowl and keep it aside.

Heat 1 TSP oil in another pan and add cinnamon, cloves, and cardamom. Wait until they start crackling and then add cumin seeds. Let the cumin seeds also crackle and then add the onion-tomato-garlic paste. Cook the mixture on a low flame for 5 mins.

Add red chilly powder, coriander powder, turmeric powder, and salt to the mixture and cook it for 1 more min. Enjoy the aroma of the mixture and watch it changing its color. Remove the pan from the flame for a while and add the beaten curd to it. Put the pan back on the flame and cook the mixture for another 5 mins.

Add potatoes to the mixture and let them get soaked in the gravy. Since we've already deep-fried the potatoes, they'd already be soft and wouldn't need much time to get cooked. When the potatoes are nicely cooked and soft enough, add Garam Masala and mix it with the gravy. Make sure that you do not stir the gravy too vigorously to end up with mashed potatoes! :)

Dum Aaloo is ready! Transfer them to a serving dish and garnish them with chopped coriander leaves. You can also crush dry fenugreek leaves and sprinkle them on the top of Dum Aaloo for an extra flavor.

Dum Aaloo go well with Naan, Paranthas, and Pooris. Enjoy!!

Friday night Matar Paneer!

It was Friday night and I felt the itch to kick Divu. What's a better way than to kick her out of the kitchen and make something delicious for her! ;-)

In the refrigerator, the poor soul was lying unnoticed since long so I thought of bringing it to life, of course, in My own style! :-) Ohh, I was talking about Paneer!
Paneer or Cottage cheese (We used to say in college - "Paneer is to a Vegetarian what Chicken is to a Non Vegetarian"). As I am a hard-core vegetarian, so my dishes would be strictly vegetarian! :-)

This is what the Paneer looked like after going through an ordeal of 25 minutes. Read on if it tempts you and aspires the chef that's hiding somewhere inside you!

Ingredients:

• Red Onion Chopped / Half Sliced – the way you like it - 1 Big / 2 Small
• Half Sliced Red Tomatoes - 2 to 3
• Fresh / Frozen Green Peas - Half bowl
  (If frozen – soak in water before use for 10 mins)
• Ginger-Garlic Paste - 1 TSP
  Finely chopped / crushed ginger and garlic can also be used)
• Finely chopped Green Chilies - 4 to 5
• Cottage Cheese - ½ Lb (250 gms)
  (Homemade / Fresh Paneer would be the best choice)
• Butter/Oil - 2 TSP
• Desi Ghee - 1 TSP

Spices - Regular:

• Cumin seeds (Jeera) 1½ TSP
• Corianderpowder (Dhaniya) 1 TSP
• Red Chilli powder (Lal Mirch) 1 TSP
• Turmeric powder (Haldi) 1½ TSP
• Salt per your taste (Namak) 1½ TSP for me

Special / Optional:

• Asafoetida powder (Heeng) a pinch
• Kitchen King (Everest / MDH) per your tsaste (I prefer around ¾TSP)
• Coriander leaves (Fresh Dhaniya)

Procedure:

1. Preheat the pan and put butter/oil.
2. Reduce the flame to Sim and throw in cumin seeds. When you hear its churning sound and see them jumping all over the, fry them for half a minute or so, till the color becomes dark brown.
3. Now throw in the ginger-garlic paste and give it a few seconds to turn brown.
   Now it’s for the green chillies to find who is hotter - the pan or chilies themselves!)
4. Throw in half of the chopped Green Chilies in the mixture. Fry them for half a minute.
   
   Do not forget to sir the mixture continuously when it's getting fried.
   

5. Put in the chopped onions now and sauté at medium heat for 3-4 mins – wait for the light brown color to appear.
6. Now put the half-sliced tomatoes and saute` well.
   
   Cover the mix for a min at light flame to let it release some water.

7. Put the rest of the spices and mix well.
   
   Do not crush the tomatoes to save on time - let them release water by itself. Cover the mixture again and let it cook for 2-3 mins at low heat (lesser than Sim). While it's cooking, enjoy the aroma of the Micky's special tadka!
   

8. Put the peas in the mixture and stir well again and increase the heat to Sim.
9. Cover the mixture again and let it cook for 2 minutes. Right now, I am letting the peas absorb some flavored moisture from all the spices!
10. In the meantime, crush the cottage cheese and keep it ready. The mixture will release some more moisture, and if somehow it goes totally dry, you can add some water (half a bowl – not essential).

11. Finally, mix the cottage cheese and stir well at medium heat.
12. Heat it for a min and spread it on the pan.
    At this stage, the yummy Matar Paneer is ready to serve, but I prefer adding the specials now.
13. Sprinkle the Kitchen King and Asafoetida powder over the Matar Paneer and mix it nicely .
14. Micky da matar paneer is ready steady go!

Yummmmzzzz!!!

Serve in a Bowl and Garnish the Matar Paneer with finely chopped Coriander Leaves and a tablespoon full of Desi Ghee!

InJoyzzzzzz!!!