Kadai Paneer Recipe - Step by Step

I really want to start this post by explaining what a kadai is (an Indian wok, btw) and what paneer is (erm.. Indian cottage cheese) but since I am just not in the mood, let's get on quickly to the recipe, shall we?

Kadai Paneer

I made Kadai Paneer with fresh homemade paneer which is why it looks very crumbly in the pics. But oh boy! It tasted so good!

I thought and thought but I still have no clue why I have never made kadai paneer before in my life. Seriously!



Kadai Paneer Recipe
Serves 2 - 4

Ingredients:
2 cups paneer, cubed
Half a capsicum / green bell pepper, cubed
1 large onion
2 green chillies
3-4 pods of garlic, crushed
1" piece of ginger, crushed (or 1tsp ginger garlic paste)
1 tomato, pureed
1 tbsp tomato paste (or another pureed tomato)
A generous pinch of kasuri methi / dried fenugreek leaves
1 tsp red chilli powder
A pinch of turmeric powder
1/2 tsp jeera / cumin seeds
1 tsp coriander powder / dhania powder / malli podi (I add a little more than this)
2 tsp oil
Salt to taste
Chopped coriander leaves to garnish



How I Made It:

1. Grind the onion along with the green chillies. Heat oil and fry this paste for 2-3 mins.



2. Then add the chilli powder, turmeric, jeera, coriander powder and crushed ginger and garlic (or ginger garlic paste) and mix well, frying for another minute.



3. To this, add the tomato paste..



4. .. and pureed tomato. Fry for 4-5 minutes until the mixture comes together and the oil begins to separate.



5. Next add the capsicum..



6. .. and kasoori methi, with some salt. Fry for 2-3 mins, until the bell pepper is cooked but still crunchy.



7. Finally add the cubed paneer and mix gently until well combined. Simmer for 2 mins and remove from fire.

I didn't fry the paneer in advance or do the whole dipping in water, squeezing and draining routine because I am very happy adding it as is at the end of this particular dish.



Garnish with coriander leaves and serve hot with rotis/chapatis.

Aloo Capsicum Pulao / Potato Capsicum Pulao Recipe

A quick rice recipe from Mallika Badrinath's 100 Rice Delights. The addition of capsicum gives the rice dish a very different flavour - we loved it!

Please excuse the very mediocre picture

Potato Capsicum Pulao

Serves: 2

Ingredients:

1 cup basmati rice

1 large potato or 2 medium to small ones

1 large capsicum, diced

2 medium-sized onions, diced

1 cup pureed tomato (about 2 tomatoes)

1 cup water

1/4 tsp garam masala

1 tbsp ghee (or oil)

Salt to taste

Grind together without water:

3 tbsp grated coconut

5 dry red chillies

1 small onion (or 6 shallots)

1 tbsp roasted channa dal / Bengal gram

2 flakes garlic

1 tsp coriander seeds (or 1 tsp coriander powder)

1 medium-sized tomato

How I Made It:

1. Soak rice for 30 mins. Pressure cook the potatoes for 1 whistle, peel, and set aside. 

2. Heat ghee or oil in the pressure cooker pan and fry the garam masala for 10 seconds. Then add the onions and fry until pink and transparent. 

3. Next add the capsicum and fry until it becomes soft. Add peeled, cubed potatoes and the ground coconut paste. Fry for about 2-3 mins and then add the pureed tomato and water. Add salt and bring to boil. 

4. Add rice to the boiling mixture, mix well and close the lid. Pressure cook for 2 whistles (about 5-6 mins). 

Serve hot garnished with chopped coriander or mint leaves. 

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On another note, TH has started to write on his most favourite sport and a huge passion of this - Tennis! There will be articles and most importantly, live ball by ball updates (like Cricinfo, but for tennis) when there's a match going on. Do pass on to your tennis-loving friends and family - The Chair Umpire. 

Heavenly Sesame Potatoes in Hot n Sweet Tomato Sauce

This recipe has probably spent the maximum number of days in my bookmarks. At the time I read this, I had just  moved to Singapore and didn't have a kitchen, let alone sesame oil and the rest of the ingredients this recipe requires. I finally made it a few weeks back and it was as yummy as I had imagined. Thank you Rajani for a keeper of a potato recipe that's both easy and delicious.

Heavenly Sesame Potatoes in Sweet Tomato Sauce
Adapted from: Rajani's EatWriteThink


Ingredients:
Serves: 2

2 large potatoes, cut into wedges (I used russet potatoes)
1 large onion, chopped fine
2 tomatoes, sliced into small pieces
1 small capsicum (or half of one), chopped fine
2 tsp soya sauce
1/2 tsp brown sugar (white sugar is also fine)
1 tsp crushed garlic (or 1/2 tsp garlic paste)
1 tsp red chilly powder
2 tbsp gingelly / sesame oil (must use this oil)
Salt to taste
Coriander leaves or spring onions, for garnish

How I Made It:

1. Shallow fry the potato wedges in oil until golden brown. Set aside to drain on a kitchen napkin.

2. In the remaining oil, add the onions and garlic and fry until golden brown. Then add the chilly powder and fry for a minute. Then add the tomatoes and saute until soft and mushy.

3. Turn heat to high and add the soya sauce and sugar. Fry on high for a minute and lower to medium heat. Add the capsicum and salt and mix well. Remove from fire after about 3-5 minutes.

4. Spoon this sauce over the potatoes and serve warm with garnish.

Paneer Burji / Bhurji Recipe

Some time back, I had asked people to share their favourite paneer dish in the Edible Garden Facebook page. I was quite surprised to see that Paneer Burji got the most votes, only followed by paneer tikka masala. I was surprised that this simple dish that I hadn't even bothered to blog about impresses so many people.

So here goes, my most versatile paneer recipe - Paneer Burji. The beauty of this recipe is, its entirely flexible. You can change around the masala powders (like using pav bhaji masala) you use and experiment with adding different vegetables (like adding tomatoes).

Paneer Burji Recipe
Serves 2

What I Used:

1.5 cups paneer, crumbled
1 small onion, chopped fine
2 green chillies, chopped fine (adjust to taste)
1/2 of a capsicum, chopped fine
A pinch of turmeric
1/2 tsp jeera powder
1/2 tsp garam masala
Fresh coriander leaves to garnish
2 tsp oil
Salt to taste

How I Made It:

1. Heat oil in a pan and add the onions and green chillies. Once the onions turn soft and pink, add the jeera, salt, and turmeric. Fry for a minute.

2. Now add the paneer, garam masala and capsicum. Stir well and cook on low fire for 7-8 mins, stirring in between. The capsicum should be crunchy. Adjust salt.

3. Garnish with the coriander leaves and serve warm with rotis or use in a sandwich. Yum!

That's so ridiculously simple that if you use store-bought paneer cubes, this should be done in less than 15 mins. How's that for a quick dinner idea?

Note: Substitute crumbled paneer with scrambled eggs and you have egg burji!

Easy Gobi Manchurian Recipe

You are away from home for an extended period of time. You have tasted most of what the local cuisine has to offer you. Your mind wanders back to the dosa and sambar, chaat, dal chaawal, rasmalai, aloo paratha.. all those things you took so much for granted back home.

Me? I crave Gobi Manchurian. One evening, I drove TH nuts saying I want gobi manchurian and I want it now. Its easy to find Indian food in Singapore, especially North Indian, but Indo-Chinese, not so much unless you are ready to go the extra mile to Little India, literally.

That evening we went, and I was happy only after I polished off an entire plate of gobi manchurian all by myself.

The next day, I made it at home. Yes, the very next day, why do you ask?

I really wish I had step by step pictures, especially to show the batter consistency, but I have measured out the ingredients quite accurately so this should come out well for you.

Gobi Manchurian Recipe

What I Used:

2 cups cauliflower, cut into florets

Oil to deep fry

For the batter:

5 tbsp maida / plain flour

3 tbsp cornflour

1/2 tsp red chilli powder (optional, depending on heat level preferred)

1/4 tsp pepper powder

1 garlic clove, minced

A pinch of salt

About 1/4 cup water

For the sauce:

1 small onion, chopped fine

1/4 cup capsicum, chopped fine

4 cloves garlic, minced

2 green chillies, slit midways (use to taste)

2 tbsp tomato ketchup

1 tsp green chilli sauce (optional but recommended)

2 tsp soy sauce

2 tsp vinegar

2 tsp cornflour mixed with 4 tbsp water

Salt, check before adding

How I Made It:

1. Let's start with the sauce. Heat oil and fry the onions, capsicum, green chillies, if using, and garlic until the onions turn golden brown.

2. Add the ketchup and the green chilli sauce to the onions and mix well. Fry for 30 seconds.

3. Turn the heat to high and add the soy sauce and vinegar. Mix well for 5 seconds and lower heat back down. Fry for 30 more seconds.

4. Now add the cornflour-water mixture and mix until the sauce thickens. Check salt and add more only if necessary, since the soy sauce and chilly sauce may have salt. Set sauce aside.

5. Mix ingredients for the batter until you get a slightly loose batter of pouring consistency. Heat oil until its just short of smoking hot, coat each cauliflower with the batter and drop it into the hot oil. Fry until golden brown and drain on kitchen towels. Repeat.

6. Once all the cauliflower florets have been fried, add to the sauce and mix well. Serve hot garnished with coriander leaves or green onions.

Note: this recipe is for the dry version of gobi manchurian that's usually served as an appetizer. You can stick toothpicks into the florets and serve as an appetizer or add more water-cornflour mixture and make the sauce looser to serve with fried rice.

Thai Fried Rice Recipe

I try recipes from The Recipe Diary on and off because, really, there are some awesome submissions in there. This was one such recipe that I bookmarked as soon as I saw it and realised there's a reason why people have rated it excellent.

I have made this twice already with every intention to make it again when we have company. Its a great recipe you can use to show off because its not a run-of-the-mill ordinary fried rice recipe that I usually use. Thanks Sree, for a lovely recipe that's surely a keeper.

Vegetarian Thai Fried Rice

For Recipe, click HERE.

Also, if you'd like to join me in my b'day month fun giveaway, please check out this post. You can never have enough of The Body Shop products, now, can you?

Stir Fried Broccoli with Mushrooms and Bean Sprouts

Since the new year, I have been on a diet of sorts. I say of sorts because I am not following any particular kind of diet. Its just one where I watch the carbs, which means I cut off rice almost completely, chose whole wheat bread over white bread and baked it myself as much as I can, and also included more vegetables and fruits in my diet. I also stopped drinking coffee and reduced tea-drinking to once a week. This wasn't too hard since I prefer milo anyway!

As part of this new diet plan, I started having stir-fries with different combinations of vegetables. Its very common in Singapore food courts to have 'mixed rice' stalls where basically you can choose a number of side dishes of vegetables and meat on a bed of rice. Most of the vegetable side dishes are a combination of 2 or more vegetables and this is one such combo that I particularly love.

I tried it once at home and we both loved it. Yes, TH loved it too! Its really very simple too and all I had for dinner is a generous helping of this stir fry with two slices of toasted brown bread.

Since I started the food photography basics series, I thought it will be useful to post some pictures that didn't make it to the post for various reasons. To see the additional pictures of the ingredients and dish in this post, you can start by clicking here. Please let me know your thoughts and if you found this useful.

The star ingredients are:

Broccoli, Shitake Mushroom

(Click HERE to see more pictures of these two that didn't make the post)

And Bean Sprouts

(Click HERE to see more pics of bean sprouts that didn't make the post)

To make a stir fry that looks like this in the end

(Click HERE to see more pics of the final stir-fry that didn't make the post)

What I Used:

Broccoli - one small head cut into thin florets
Mushrooms - 1 cup, quartered with thick stalks removed. I used Shitake mushrooms but you can use pretty much any variety you want.
Bean sprouts - 1/2 cup
Green bell pepper / capsicum - 1/2 cup, cut into squares
Onions - 1/2 cup, cut into squares
Garlic - 2 cloves, chopped
Red chilli powder - 1 tsp
Low sodium soya sauce - 4 tbsp
Cornflour / cornmeal - 1 tbsp, dissolved in 4 tbsp water
Salt - to taste
Oil - 2 tsp

How I Made It:

1. Heat oil and fry the onions and garlic until the onions turn pink.

2. Increase the heat to high and add the soya sauce. Let the sauce boil for about a min before adding the broccoli, mushrooms and capsicum. Continue to stir on high heat.

3. Once the vegetables have wilted a bit, add the bean sprouts and mix well.

4. Add the cornflour mix and blend well. Make sure not to use too much water to dissolve the cornflour.

5. Mix for another minute until the dish has blended well. Taste and adjust salt. You may not need as much as you think because the soya sauce will already have some salt.

You can adapt the kind of vegetables used and their quantities for this dish. Its very simple to make and quite filling too!

Here's another look at the dish - my favourite shot!

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Paneer Tomato Salad

This recipe has been in my archives for a long time now, simply because its really not much of a recipe - just a concoction of different ingredients that I like. I took a picture and saved it since it was just too colourful to pass without doing atleast that.

Now I see a great opportunity to post it because this is for a cause. O Food For Ovarian Cancer Awareness. Its a competition that spreads awareness about Ovarian Cancer and features all ingredients that either starts or ends with O. The one I am featuring here is Tomato. For more details, please click here.

What I Used:

Ripe red tomatoes - 2
Paneer/Indian cottage cheese - 1/2 cup, cubed
Capsicum/green bell pepper - 1/2 cup, cubed
Black pepper powder - 1 tsp
Chaat masala - 1/2 tsp
Lime juice/vinegar - 1 tbsp or more
Salt - to taste

How I Made It:

1. Mix the chaat masala, pepper, salt and lime juice/vinegar well together.

2. Mix the tomatoes, bell pepper and panner together, adding a bit of salt. Mash some of the tomato pieces so there is some mush and juices for the paneer to soak in.

3. Pour the lime dressing over it before serving. Can also be served as a wrap in chapati or pita bread.