When we think about a paneer, we never think of putting curry leaves, in any of the preparation, wouldn't we ? Paneer is a typical north Indian ingredient, and curry leaves are associated with south Indian recipes. This recipe that I make and like combines the two and also, a Maharashtrian spice mix -- Goda masala, which gives it a unique and delicious flavor to the paneer preparation. A yummy fusion of the three regions..... !!! :)
Ingredients:
- Paneer -- fresh or frozen around 200 gms
- Capsicum -- 1 (optional)
- Red Onion -- 1 (medium sized)
- Tomato -- 2 (medium sized)
- Garlic --- 4/5 cloves grated/minced
- Green chili -- 1
- Coriander powder, Cumin powder, Salt -- 1 tsp each
- Red chili powder, Turmeric powder -- 1/2 tsp each
- Cumin seeds -- 1 tsp
- Curry leaves -- about 25/30
- Coconut milk -- 50 ml (I used about 1/4 of the 200 ml pack)
- Maharashtrian Goda masala -- 1 tbsp
- 1-2 tbsp oil
- Fresh Coriander leaves to garnish
Recipe:
- Defrost the paneer, either by leaving it out overnight in the fridge, or in microwave, or in hot water if you are using the frozen paneer. (I used it straight from the freezer..... it kinda crumbles ..if used like that..and doesn't hold the shape well)
- Chop the onion, capsicum and tomatoes in to square pieces.
- Heat a pan and add about a tbsp of oil to it.
- Add cumin seeds, turmeric, garlic, chopped chili and curry leaves to the hot oil.
- Once the cumin crackles, stir it for about half a minute and add the onions and capsicum.
- Add the coriander, cumin powder and salt.
- Keep stirring, add tomatoes.
- Once the vegetables are cooked and tomatoes slightly mushy, add the paneer.
- Stir fry continuously on medium heat.
- Add the goda masala, mix it well.
- Now lower the heat to medium-low and slowly stir in the coconut milk, while continuously stirring the paneer.
- Cover the pan and let it simmer for 2-3 minutes.
- Garnish with fresh coriander leaves and serve hot.
Quantity:
- You can increase the quantity of coconut milk and add some water to make it to a gravy.
- You can use punjabi/packaged garam masala, if you do not have homemade maharashtrian goda masala.
On last weekend, we visited a restaurant on the beach, which served freshly caught prawns cooked in sambal sauce. They were really delicious. Sambal paste is a widely used paste in Asia,especially in Malaysian, Indonesian and Singaporean cuisine. Inspite of living here for more than an year, I haven't tried to learn much about cooking the popular food here...., so I thought this recipe was a good one to start. What I have made today, may or may not be very authentic, I read about sambal paste recipes on the internet and found that there are 100s of recipes according to countries, regions and even cooks. These are the common ingredients-- spicy red hot chilies, shrimp paste, garlic and shallots, plus and minus some ingredients. Lot of information about Sambal paste here !! This is how, I made this recipe......
Ingredients:
- 5-6 cloves of garlic
- 5-6 red chilies(I have used bird's eye chilies, can use dried red ones too...soak them in water for about 10-15 minutes)
- 1 tbsp shrimp paste -about 15 gms (I used belacan , that is a malay variety of shrimp paste)
- 3 stalks of lemon grass
- 4-5 shallots
- 1 lemon (juiced)
- about 1 kg of chicken (I used about 850 gms of whole chicken with bones, without skin)
- salt to marinate the chicken -- about 1 tsp
- 2-3 tbsp oil
- coriander leaves and chili to garnish
Recipe:
- Wash and clean the chopped chicken. Drain out all the water. Rub a tsp of salt over the chicken and keep it aside.
- Keep one stalk of lemongrass aside, chop the remaining two, after removing outer layers. Remove skins of the garlic and shallots and tops of the chilies.
- Put it all in a blender or a food processor and pulse for 20 seconds, till it all comes together as a paste. You can do it by hand too, with the help of mortar and pestle.
- Add the block of shrimp paste to the above paste and pulse again to get a fine puree. Add lemon juice to the paste. Sambal paste is ready.
- Heat about 2-3 tbsp oil in a pan. Add the sambal paste to it.
- Saute it, stirring well for 3-4 minutes.
- Add chicken and let the spices get coated onto the chicken.
- Stir well and let the chicken cook for 4-5 minutes till it becomes white.
- Add about 1- 1.5 cups of water(I added the water to the grinder in which I made the sambal paste and kinda cleaned out the sambal paste) to the chicken, and let it simmer on low flame for another 7-8 minutes.
- Garnish with chopped lemon grass, coriander and lime wedges.
- Serve hot with fragrant jasmine rice.
Quantity:
- I have used the least possible chilies to make the sambal paste. You can increase the chilies to 10 or even more for a really fiery hot sambal paste.
- If you are using dried red chilies, soak them in water for 10-15 minutes.
- To reduce the heat, remove the seeds.
- My version was fairly okay in terms of spice level.... even my little one could have it(just the chicken without the gravy), so I did not feel the need to remove the seeds.
- You can add a bit of sugar to the paste to balance the tartness of the limes, heat of the chilies and saltiness of the shrimp paste. I didn't add.. !!
- As with other chicken recipes, make it ahead and let it sit in sambal sauce for 6-12 hours. It tastes really good that way....!!
- You can use this paste to make prawns or grilled fish too...!!
- A special note to my Malaysian and Singaporean readers: Do let me know, how do you make your Sambal paste !!!
This is one easy quick-fix recipe, when you are short of time and you wish to eat a full Indian meal. I served it with frozen chapatis that you get in the supermarket here. It was ready in about half hour.
Ingredients:
- 350 gms paneer(I used frozen)
- a big bunch (about a cup and half) of coriander and mint leaves (stems from the mint leaves removed)
- 3-5 tbsp of greek yogurt
- 3 medium sized onions
- 3 green chilies
- 4-5 garlic flakes
- 1 inch piece of ginger
- 1 tsp garam masala
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp cumin seeds
- 1 tsp of oil/butter/or ghee (or more according to taste)
Recipe:
- Take the required paneer out of the freezer, in case you are using frozen paneer and keep it on the counter to defrost)
- Wash and rinse the coriander and mint leaves and leave it in the strainer to drain out excess water.
- In a grinder, add 2 green chilies and ginger and pulse for a few seconds. Then add the coriander and mint leaves and pulse again till you get a fine puree.
- Add the greek yogurt and salt and pulse again.
- Take the puree out in another bowl.
- Add paneer to the coriander-mint-greek yogurt puree, mix well and leave it aside for 10-15 minutes.
- In the same grinder jar, add garlic and the remaining chili(optional) and get a fine paste. Take it out and puree the onions to get fine onion paste.
- Heat oil/butter/ghee in a pan and add cumin seeds and garlic-chili paste.
- Then add the pureed onion paste and saute it on a medium-low flame till it is well cooked and the oil separates ( it will not happen if you use just a tsp of oil :) ... just wait for it to dry, as mine)
- Add the marinated paneer and mix well.
- Cook on low-medium flame for 3-5 minutes.
- Add about 1/4-1/3 cup of water, if u want a wet curry and let it boil for about 1-2 minutes.
- Add garam masala, mix well and turn off the flame.
- Garnish with mint leaves, hot melted butter or ghee or even a dollop of greek yogurt.
- Serve hot with chapati, naan, paratha or rice.
Quantity:
- Reduce the quantity of greek yogurt to about 1 tbsp, if you want a dry curry or to eat the paneer as a appetizer.
- You can eat the dry version of this curry, as a filling to grilled sandwich (which we did the next day)
- You can substitute normal curd for greek yogurt. Hang the curd to get a thick creamy version, for an hour or two.
I wanted to try a Bengali cuisine recipe for a long time. Regional cuisine of India is totally exotic and different, from what we get in an Indian restaurant in a foreign country. Though Singapore has authentic regional cuisine speciality restaurants which are as good as India. I browsed through google and came across this curry, which is cooked in many Bengali households as a Special Sunday Lunch. They love to eat fish/eggs/vegetables during the week and .....on weekends are special meat based meals. (I got to confirm this with my Bengali friend here... :) ) ... all my info comes from google. Well, I tried this recipe yesterday and we liked it. I made one big pot of rice and this curry and it was an hearty meal for my family. My older son, who loves chicken preparations had 3 helpings of this curry and gave me a "delicious" stamp. I guess, I would be making this curry often from now on.... !
Saturdays are lazy mornings, I can't wake up early....or fairly late ....I wake up very late....usually almost noon....and then...the breakfast is pushed to lunch time and lunch is pushed ahead and so on.... Nowadays, I force myself to get up as my gym has an interesting class at noon...yet, after that I feel so hungry and tired....that making a hot meal is out of question....you feel like eating at many delicious restaurants that seem to surround popular gyms..... :) Well, this is one such recipe which is very tasty, yet not so calorific and can be made very fast .... I make it before I leave for the gym, so I have a hot meal ready when I come back.
