TIL KAJU BATA PANEER

I haven't shared Paneer / Indian Cottage Cheese recipe for sometime, I keep cooking it. I store a block of frozen paneer in freezer, prepare fresh some days. The above platter was prepared on X-Mas Eve, no stock in freezer. Now, I am thinking of preparing and freezing paneer. Before that, I have to use up two packets of tomatoes I got home yesterday to prepare tomato sauce. The store bought tomato sauce, sriracha are about to finish, I wish to prepare another batch of sauce a simple way. The preservative I use for my sauces is vinegar. I enjoy preparing sauces, pickles at home. The Indian style pickle I had prepared with green apple is tasting good, I never thought that our kind of spices will go good with green apple. I am eager to share recipe of it, the achar is taking sun bath at this time which is necessary for Indian pickles. 

The idea of this blog is to give you a desi feel through its shares most of time, shares which will be easy to cook, great to eat. Keeping in tune with that, I had in making a vegetarian side dish prepared with paneer, roasted white sesame & cashew nut, a bit of yogurt, onion, salt two-three days back. I named it TIL KAJU BATA PANEER.

The Sun is finally seen after 8:30am this morning, you never know all of a sudden it may go down, it will start raining. All my indoor plants are limping, panting. They are installed near bedroom window pane for some sunlight. This is the problem of not knowing anything about gardening but wanting to have greens in your home. Ever since I have learnt that fallen hairs can be put in soil which may provide nitrogen to plants, I am tearing off my hairs literally in addition to excess of hair fall each day. I never did think my hairs and eye brows may require any care or to be made up, they were naturally good. Now, it seems a basic care of skin and hair is required if not wearing make up much. 

I best shove of worries when I am inside kitchen holding a ladle. There I experiment with different ingredients, not exotic ones though. In the process, I discovered this vegetarian paneer dish TIL KAJU BATA PANEER last month perhaps. Its simplicity, taste appealed to me, us. Myself, son love paneer, Cristine says she enjoys paneer more than tofu. The husband eats it without noise. He does not love paneer but particularly this one he had with ghee rice skipping his love egg. Why not share recipe? I have near similar recipe already in blog CURRY AND SPICE under the heading SHAHI PANEER.

INGREDIENTS :

PANEER / INDIAN COTTAGE CHEESE : 250-300GM [should serve a family of 3-4-6]

WHITE SESAME SEED : 11/2TBSP

CASHEW NUT : 5-6

ONION PASTE : 2TBSP

PLAIN YOGURT : 2TBSP

GREEN CHILLI PASTE : 2TSP

TURMERIC POWDER : 2PINCH

BAY LEAF : 1

CINNAMON STICK : 2-3 OF TWO INCH LENGTH

GREEN CARDAMOM : 2-3

CLOVE : 3-4

SUGAR : 1/2TSP

SALT : AS REQUIRED

OIL : 4TBSP

PROCEDURE :

If you are using frozen paneer block, pieces, the first thing you should do is wash, soak block or pieces in hot, salted water for 1/2 an hour.

Thereafter, discard water, wash paneer block / pieces again. If you are using a block, cut them in to desired shapes. Add little salt to them, marinate.

Then I dry roasted white sesame seeds, cashew nuts together, added to mixer-grinder. I had also added cut onion from 1 big onion peeled, washed, cubed, 2-3 washed green chillies, plain yogurt. 

They were ground to a smooth paste adding little of water. 

We would then heat oil in wok, temper with bay leaf, cloves, cinnamon sticks, green cardamoms. We will add white paste, 2 pinches of turmeric powder, salt as required. 

We would then stir paste for a minute and little more. It seemed amazing that the onion did not smell raw after brief stir.

Now, we would add a coffee mug of lukewarm water, simmer at low heat for 3-4 minutes, then add marinated paneer and 1/2tsp sugar.

We would cook at minimal heat for 3-4 minutes, take down.

We enjoyed TIL KAJU BADAM BATA PANEER with Ghee Rice, Dim Aloor Dalna, Soyabean Curry. It would go well with any kind of bread!