Chilli Paneer, Veg Fried Rice and Kofta Curry

Chilli Paneer

I love chinese and its been ages since I had it outside. Yeah we had gone for it couple of weeks back but whatever we had ordered wasnt upto the mark and hence didnot count :) Hence yesterday I thought lets give it a shot at home. I have earlier tried these stuff at home as well, but then the taste wasnt authentic. But yesterday I can say I mastered it. So here is the recipe for you.

Ingredients

400gm Paneer

1 Onion

6 Chillies

15 Garlic Cloves

A Pinch of Black Pepper Powder

2 Spoon Dark Soy Sauce

1 Spoon Tomato Ketchup

1 Spoon Corn Flour

2-3 Strands of Spring Onion

Salt to taste

Oil

Method

• Cut the paneer into medium sized cubes and fry them in oil over medium heat till light gold in color. Keep aside
• In same oil fry onions till translucent.
• Add chopped chillies and garlic and cook till fragranant
• Add black pepper powder and Soy sauce and cook for a minute
• Add paneer cubes and tomato ketchup. Cook for 2-3 minutes
• Mix corn flour in a cup of water and add it to the paneer mixture.
• Add more water if needed and cook the paneer with closed lid for 3 minutes.
• Garnish with chopped spring onions and serve

Notes
Chop the green chillies in slanted fashion for this so that you get the same look and feel that you see in restaurants.
Do not fry paneer till its completely crispy from outside. You want to keep it as soft as possible and yet fry it so that it gets the proper texture.
Also if you are looking for it as starter which is dry, add little less water and cook for some more time if required so that the final result is dry :)

Veg Fried Rice

In Chinese I love Soft noodles. But, I havent yet been able to prepare them of the level of nice chinese restaurant. So most of the time I end up preparing fried rice instead. So here is recipy for the veg fried rice.

Ingredients

2 Cup Rice

1 Onion

1 Cup Cabbage Shredded

1/2 Cup Carrot Shredded

1/2 Cup Muttor

A pinch of Black Pepper Powder

Salt to taste

Oil

Method

• Cook rice and keep aside
• Heat oil and add chopped onion and shredded carrots. Saute till onions are translucent
• Add and cook till cabbage is done
• Add muttor, black pepper powder and salt and cook for another minute
• Add cooked rice and mix well. Cook for 2-3 minutes

Notes
Adding carrot at start makes sure that carrot is cooked well as it will take longest time to cook.

Kofta Curry
Whenever we get bottle gourd, ajoy has this demand of Koftas and so yesterday was the day when I obliged and made it for him. Here is the recipe.


Ingredients
4 Cup Grated Bottle Gourd
1.5 Cup Bason
2 Tomatoes
1 Onion
1/2 Spoon Garlic Paste
1 Spoon Jeera
1 Spoon Red Chilli Powder
1/4 Spoon Turmeric Powder
1/4 Spoon Garam Masala
1/4 Spoon Aamchur Powder
1/4 Spoon Corriander Powder
Corriander Leaves for garnishing
Salt to taste

Method

• Apply salt to the grated bottle gourd and keep aside for few minutes.
• Squize out water from the bottle gourd and mix bason, 1/2 spoon jeera, 1/2 spoon red chilli powder, garam masala, aamchur powder
• Prepare lemon sized ball out of this mixture and deep fry them in oil over low-medium heat. Keep aside
• Heat little oil in a pan and let the jeera splutter.
• Add the finelly chopped onion and garlic paste and cook till golden brown
• Add turmeric powder, remaining red chilli powder, corriander powder and salt
• Add tomatoes and cook well. Add water and bring to boil. Once the tomatoes are cooked well keep the mixture aside to cool down a bit
• Put the mixture into the mixie and grind to fine paste
• In a pan add this grinded mixture, enough water to make running gravy and koftas and bring to boil
• Garnish with corriander leaves and serve

Notes
I tried to keep the kofta spicy and gravy very less spicy so that one can enjoy koftas rather than gravy. You can vary it to your taste though

Khima Egg Masala And Green Salad

Khima Egg Masala

When we were about to leave from temporary housing, we had so many stuff remaining and we didnt want to carry too many items from there to permanant one. So thats what is the inspiration behind this experiment. Quite tasty and unique :)

Ingredients

450g Khima

4 Tomatoes

2 Onions

3 Eggs

1 Spoon Garam Masala

1.5 Spoon Red chilli Powder

1 Spoon Turmeric Powder

1/4 Spoon Black Pepper

2-3 Cinnamon

1/4 Spoon Garlic Paste

1/4 Spoon Ginger Paste

1/2 Spoon Corriander Powder

A pinch of Jeera Powder

Corriander Leaves for Garnishing

Salt to taste

Oil

Method

• Hard boil eggs and keep them aside.
• In a pan heat oil and add washed and drained Khima to it.
• Cook till it turns brown in color and oil separates out. Keep aside.
• In same oil add black pepper, cinnamon and let it turn light brown in color.
• Add finely chopped onion, garlic paste, ginger paste to this
• When onion is completely cooked, add 1/2 spoon turmeric, 1 spoon red chilli powder, garam masala, corriander powder and jeera powder
• Mix well and cook for couple of minutes
• Let it cool down and grind the mixture in mixie.
• In same pan in a spoonful of oil add this grinded mixture and grated tomatoes and cook till tomato is half done.
• Mix 1/4 cup of water in it, Salt to taste and the fried keema to it. Cook till completely done and almost dry. Keep aside
• Grate the eggs, add turmeric powder, chilli powder and salt to taste to it and keep aside.
• While serving, add small portion of keema masala into the bowl, top it with grated egg mixture and garnish with corriander leaves.

Notes

One can actually add, cheese or paneer as well instead of egg but I thought egg would be the best one to go along this recipe flavour.

Green Salad

When I came to US there were so many new ingredients that were easily available that I decided to try something different than I have always tried :) So here was my experiment with the first salad. I would name it Green Salad for I used Green Leaf Lettuce :)

Ingredients

10 leaves of Green Leaf Lettuce

1/2 Cup Grape Tomatoes

1/2 Pineapple

1/4 Cup Corn

10 Cucumber Pickels

5 Jalapenos

1/2 Spoon Oregano

2.5 Spoon Ranch Dressing

Salt to taste

Method

• Cook the corn in boiling water or microwave in a cup of water for 5 min. Drain the water and keep aside.
• Cut the green leaf lettuce into medium sized pieces
• Halve the grape tomatoes and add them to leaf lettuce.
• Add Pineapple after chopping it to small pieces
• Halve cucumber pickle and add to it
• Add chooped jalapenos and corn that was set aside.
• Add Ranch Dressing, Oregano and Salt. Mix well and serve.

Notes

This was something quick, healthy and yet tasty. The ranch dressing and oregano went well together :) Need to try some other fruits, vegetables and dressings. :)

Onion Bhaji and Hariyali Chicken Biryani

Onion Bhaji 

I prepare these kind of bhaji very few times as I always loved those Crab style bhajis more than these. But when I felt like eating these last weekend, I prepared them and turned out quite well.

Ingredients

2 Onions

1/2 Cup Bason

1/4 Cup Corriander Leaves

1 Spoon Red Chilli Powder

1/4 Spoon Turmeric Powder

1/2 Spoon Corriander Powder

1/4 Spoon Jeera Powder

Salt to taste

Oil

Method

• Finely chop onions and add the salt to it. Keep aside for 5-10 minutes
• Add Bason, corriander leaves- finely chopped, red chilli powder, turmeric powder, corriander powder, jeera powder and mix to form the paste. Add water if needed.
• Heat the oil in a pan, and add a spoonful of it into the paste.
• Mix the paste well and fry the Bhaji's of small size to crispy brown colour.

Notes

I normally apply salt to onion and keep aside as that helps in seperating water and then the paste doesnt loosen after some time.

Since I add the heated oil I dont use eating soda, heated oil is good enough for giving crispiness

Hariyali Chicken Biryani

I wanted to eat something chatpata and hence had prepared Pani Puri. So i had plenty of pudina remaining. So was frozen chicken waiting for being cooked in freezer. Ajoy wanted to eat biryani and I wanted to get over the freeze items... Thats when this recipe was born :) and became super hit for its different taste and fragnance :)

Ingredients

6 Leg Pieces of Chicken

2 Cup Basamati Rice

1/2 Bunch of Pudina

1/2 Bunch of Corriander Leaves

2 Green Chillies

2 Cinnamon Sticks

1/4 Spoon Black Pepper

4 Cloves

4 Cardamoms

1/2 Cup Ghee

3 Onions

1 Tomato

1/2 Spoon Garlic Paste

4 Spoon Curd

1 Spoon Red chilli powder

A Pinch of Turmeric Powder

Salt to taste

Method

• Marinate chicken with red chilli powder, turmeric powder, garlic paste and curd and keep aside for couple of hours.
• Warm around 6 cups of water and soak the rice in it and keep aside for half an hour.
• In a mixie grind pudina leaves, corriander leaves, tomato and green chilli to fine paste.
• Keep aside 2 spoon of ghee and heat remaining ghee in a pan.
• Chop one of the onion into thin slices and fry it to light brown colour into the ghee. Keep aside.
• In remaining ghee from frying, add cinnamon, black pepper and remaining onions - grated and cook them till light brown in colour.
• Add this mixture to mixie along with green paste and grind again to smooth paste
• In same pan add this ground paste, 1.5 cup of water and marinated chicken and cook till completely dry with stirring in between. Add salt to taste and keep aside.
• While chicken is cooking, drain the water from the rice, cook it with another 2 cups of water and salt to taste till almost done. Drain the water and keep aside for cooling down.
• Heat 1/2 spoon of ghee and add cloves and cardamom to it. Fry them for a minute on low flame and then add this ghee to the rice and mix well.
• Grease a thick bottom pan or cooker and layer the rice and chicken mixture alternating. Also add fried onions in between while adding chicken.
• Cook on low flame for 15 minutes and serve hot

Notes

I had leg pieces of chicken so used them all but you can substitute it with equal grams plus little more of normal chicken pieces too.

Here the electric stove has variations of 8 degrees so I used 2 for cooking the layered biryani instead of my usual cooker on top of tawa and a layer of potato down the biryani. So if you are using regular stove you would need to follow same procedure so that biryani doesnt burn.

Tofu Burger and Masala Daal

Tofu Burger

I was very inclined to prepare the burger at home but didnt want to try any meat burger. So thought of preparing paneer one. But then the indian grocerry store was little far from my place so thought to try it on tofu. The burger turned out quite well and the mildness of tofu vanished in the spcies and other things that I added.

Ingredients

4 Burger Buns

100g Tofu

2 Onions

1 Tomato

1 Fresh Red Chilli

4 Cheese Slices

1/2 Cup Lettuce

Ranch Dressing

Salt and Pepper

Oil

Method

• Cut the Tofu into cubes
• Heat oil and keep the flame on low.
• Add tofu pieces and cook till light brown in colour.
• Add onion slices, red chilli into it and cook till onions are slight brown in colour
• Add salt and pepper and stir well. Divide the mixture into 4 portions
• On each bun keep the cheese slice and add the portion of the cooked tofu mixture.
• Spread the lettuce, tomato Slice, couple of drops of tomato ketchup and one circle of the ranch dressing.
• Close with the upper portion of the bun and serve.

Notes
I cooked tofu on very light heat which helped me keep it soft. The Spicy Chilli, ranch dressing helped in supressing the mildness of Tofu.

Masala Daal
This Spicy daal was something I just experimented out when I was in pune. It turned out great. Actually mom dad loved it and then when I came here even ajoy liked it :) So thought of posting the recipe


Ingredients
3 Cup Tur Daal
1 Onion
1 Tomato
6-7 Garlic cloves
1/4 Spoon Mustard
1/4 Spoon Jeera
1 Spoon Red Chilli Powder
1/4 Spoon Turmeric Powder
1/2 Spoon Jeera Powder
1/2 Spoon Corriander Powder
1/4 Spoon Garam Masala
Corriander Leaves for Garnishing
Butter cubes
Salt to taste
Ghee

Method

• Cook tur daal with 1 cup water in the cooker.
• Heat the oil and let the mustard and jeera splutter in it
• Add finely chopped onions, garlic pieces and fry till onions turn translucent.
• Add turmeric powder, red chilli powder, jeera powder, corriander powder and garam masala and mix well.
• Add tomato and cook till tomato is completely done.
• Add in cooked tur daal, salt and mix well. Cook for couple of minutes with constant stirring
• Add enough water for getting desired consistency to the daal and bring it to the boil.
• Garnish with corriander leaves.
• While serving serve with little butter cubes on top.

Notes
While cooking daal I dont mix too much of water, that way the cooked daal when added to masala completely soaks the taste and aroma.

Crisp Indianised Hash Brown AND Bhel

Crisp Indianised Hash Brown 

I had prepared this couple of weeks back but got the chance to post now.. The item was amazingly crispy and tasty :) Yet a quick prepartions :)

Ingredients

2 Potatoes

1 Green Chilli

1/4 Cup Cucumber Pickles

A pinch of Black Pepper Powder

Salt to taste

Ghee

Method

• Grate the potatoes and wash them with lots of water to remove all starch.
• Drain all the water from the grated potatoes and let them dry on a paper towel
• Mix the grated potatoes with finely chopped green chillies, picled cucumbers, black pepper powder and salt.
• Heat the tawa and spread ghee to coat it.
• Spread the potato mixture on the tawa to form a thin layer
• Cook on medium flame on both sides till the colour turns to brown

Notes

I used the medium sized grater for this so that the pototo pieces arent too thin/thick. Thicker version will not give as much crisp as this one did.

The green chillies gave it nice firy - spicy touch

Bhel

Bhel being one of my favourite snacks we end up preparing it often. I also prefer it during outings :) Preparing it at some nice picnic spot is the best, easiest and tastiest food :)

Ingredients

6 Cup Churmura

2 Cup All in One Mixture

1 Cup Shev

1 Cup Boondi

1 Cup Navaratna Mix

1.5 Cup Tamarind

2 Cup Jaggery

2 Green Chillies

1 Spoon Red Chilli Powder

1/2 Spoon Jeera Powder

4-5 Dates

2 Onions

2 Tomatoes

1/2 Cup Corriander Leaves

Salt to taste

Method

• Soak the tamarind and dates in water for an hour or so
• Grind the mixture with jaggery, red chilli powder, green chilli, jeera powder and salt
• Strain the mixture and keep it aside
• In a big pan mix churmura(puffed rice), navaratna mix, all in one, shev, finely chopped onion, tomatoes and corriander leaves. Mix well
• Add the tamarind mixture prepared earlier and Mix well
• Garnish with boondi and serve immediately

Notes

Garnish it with Raw Mango pieces during mango season. It would be more fun :)

Its good idea to make the bhel in batches so that it doesnt become soggy while serving it. 

I normally prefer to keep some tamarind mixture aside instead of mixing the full quantity. That helps giving the personal touch :) The taste depends on what one likes.

Very good item for picnics and parties. You can keep everything ready and mix all of the items just before eating

Pineapple Muramba And Aalu Gobi

Pineapple Muramba 

Almost a month back I got the big pineapple from costco. I just remembered mom's pineapple muramba and thought of giving it a shot. Called up mom and asked for recipe.. And it turned out that it was quite easy to make it and hence prepared that night immediately :)

Ingredients

5 Cups Fresh cut Pineapple

3 Cup Water

1.5 Cup Sugar

Method

• Mix pineapple pieces with water such that it barely submerges pineapple
• Cook the mixture over medium flame keeping a lid till pineapple are cooked.
• Strain the mixture and separate out pineapple and water
• In same water mix the sugar and bring to boil
• With constant stirring keep heating water over medium flame till it becomes 1 string consistency syrup
• Now add pineapple pieces and boil once again
• Let it cool down and refrigerate in the fridge

Notes

The muramba needs to be stored in fridge and it would stay for few months.

Good side dish to eat with chappati/paratha

I dont like too much of sugar syrup and hence the above recipe gives very less sugar syrup mixed pineapple muramba.. If you like you can add another cup of water + 1/2 cup of sugar to get traditional version which has more liquid

Aalu Gobi

Ajoy loves gobi so we always have it at home. This time I thought of trying something different that the usual preparations and end up preparing this dish

Ingredients

2 Potatoes

1 Gobi

1/2 Spoon Mustard

1 Spoon Jeera

1 Spoon Jeera Powder

1 Spoon Corriander Powder

1 Spoon Red Chilli Powder

1/2 Spoon Garam Masala

1/4 Spoon Turmeric Powder

1/4 Spoon Powdered Sugar

Corriander Leaves for garnishing

Salt to taste

Oil

Method

• Peel the potatoes and cut them in cubic shapes
• Separate out the florets of medium size from the gobi
• Heat oil in a pan and let the mustard and Jeera splutter in the oil.
• Add potato pieces and gobi florets in the oil and cook on medium flame with constant stirring.
• After 5 minutes add turmeric powder and keep cooking
• When the potato and gobi is almost done, add corriander powder, jeera powder, red chilli powder, garam masala, powdered sugar and salt. Mix well and cook till completely done
• Garnish with finely chopped corriander leaves

Notes

This simple dish gives different flavour than the tomato gravy kind of gobi preparation. The vegetable is quite dry and goes well with phulkas or parathas.

Pumpkin Almond Cup Cakes and Carrot Paratha

Pumpkin Almond Cup Cakes

Few days back I made 'Khatakhata' - a special mixed vegetable dish from konkani cuisine. It needs pumpkin and I looked for it through all grocery stores, super markets, indian stores but every one said its out of season. But Wholes food had canned pumpkin and I thought of giving it a try. But when I opened the can I found that it was mashed one and not cubed ones. So I couldnt use that in the khatkhata. (Yes recipe will come for it when I cook it next time as this time I forgot to take pics). Then I was looking for all pumpkin recipes that can use puree of Pumpkin and found that cupcakes use them. So finally after reading lot I came up with this my version. Once it started baking it spread so much of aroma that I just couldnt wait for them to get ready. What a nice way to eat Pumpkin :)

Ingredients

2 cup Pumpkin Puree

3 Cup Maida

1 Cup Butter

1.5 Cup Brown Sugar

1/2 Cup Castor Sugar

2 Spoon Baking Powder

1/2 Spoon Baking Soda

1/2 Cup Milk

1/2 Spoon Cinnamon Powder

1/2 Spoon Cloves Powder

1/2 Spoon Nutmeg Powder

1/4 Cup Almond Sliced

1/2 Spoon Pistachio Essence

2 Eggs

Method

• Sieve through Maida, baking powder, baking soda few times.
• Mix Nutmeg powder, cinnamon powder and cloves powder. Keep aside
• In a bowl, beat butter, brown sugar and castor sugar together untill mixture is fluffy and sugar is completely mixed
• Add in each egg at a time and beat them into the mixture.
• Now add the sieved maida-bakingpowder mixture little at a time till completely accomodated. Stir with a spatula and dont use blender here.
• Add milk and mix well. Mixture will thin down a little
• Add pumkin puree and pistacheo essence and mix gently using the spatula
• Mix in the almonds except few to decorate in the batter.
• Preheat the oven to 350F/180C
• Grease the cup cake trays and fill in the mixture upto 3/4th level in each cup
• Garnish with remaining almonds
• Bake in the oven on 350F/180C for 20 minutes. Knife inserted should come out clean.

Notes
If you are using fresh pumkin, just steam the pumkin and then mash it in mixie. I guess that should work too.
Made around 16 medium sized cup cakes

Carrot Paratha

I was thinking about something new yet simple for dinner yesterday. I thought of parathas as ajoy loves it.. But then I didnt want to cook something that we always eat.. So came up with this idea. Turned quite nice.


Ingredients
1.5 Potato
2 Cup Grated Carrots
2.5 Cup Wheat Flour
1 Spoon Red Chilli Powder
3/4 Spoon Corriander Powder
1/4 Spoon Carom Seeds
1/2 Lemon
Salt to taste
Oil
Ghee

Method

• Mix wheat flour, salt to taste and 2 spoons of oil.
• Add water to it and make the dough. It shouldnt be too loose or too tight.
• Add another couple of spoon of oil and knead well and keep aside for half an hour atleast.
• Cook potatoes in the pressure cooker and let them cool
• Mash the potatoes and mix with carrots
• Add red chilli powder, salt, corriander powder, carom seeds and lemon juice. Mix well.
• Prepare the balls of small lemon size out of this mixture
• Make same size balls from the dough and prepare the cup shape.
• Stuff the carrot ball in the cup shape dough and close the ball. Roll the paratha
• On medium flame, heat the tawa and cook the paratha from both sides till brown. Spread few drops of oil while its cooking.
• When completely done apply few drops of ghee and serve with pickle and/or curd

Notes
I prefer to use only few drops of ghee at the end of cooking of paratha but if you like you can fry them in ghee itself.

Tawa Paneer And Brinjal Paratha

Tawa Paneer 

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

I had been so bored eating same type of gravies and all I thought that I have to try something different with paneer this time. Would have loved to make palak paneer but then I didnt have spinach and i was too tired with cycling and too engrossed in DMG - Abhi - Nikki Scenes that I decided to make my own tawa paneer recipe. Well I didnt even look on net for recipes nor did i check in some of the books I have. Just went through adding whatever I felt like. Result was awesome :) So here I am sharing with you my own Tawa Paneer

Ingredients

200g Paneer Block

1 Onion

2 Tomato

4-5 Sweet Peppers

1/4 Spoon Turmeric Powder

1 Spoon Red Chilli Powder

1/4 Spoon Jeera Powder

1/4 Spoon Corriander Powder

1/4 Spoon Aamchur Powder

Salt to taste

Oil

Method

• Cut the paneer into squared pieces, onions and tomatoes into the medium sized pieces
• Slice the sweet peppers
• On a tawa add some oil and shallow fry paneer pieces on high heat but till light brown in colour. Keep aside
• In same oil add chopped onion and cook till light brown in colour. Separate from oil and keep aside
• Cook sweet peppers in same oil and keep aside
• In same oil, add tomato pieces and cook till almost done.
• Add red chilli powder, turmeric powder, jeera powder, corriander powder and Aamchur Powder and saute for 2-3 minutes
• Add paneer pieces, onion, sweet peppers and salt to taste.
• Mix well and cook for another 4-5 minutes and serve warm

Notes

I didnt want to add any fancy items in there nor i wanted to add more spices etc to make sure it is not too spicy. Well I loved the taste as it was it had perfect combination of mild spices with the soft paneer.

I used nonstick tawa with sides to it - that helped me in managing it while mixing well :)

Brinjal Paratha

These days I end up making parathas too often. Simple reason being, then you dont need to cook other 3-4 items and also ajoy loves parathas. So its good for me too and for him too.. especially on busy weekdays. So here is something I came up with Brinjal. I had tried this lot of times but I think yesterday was the best one with perfect combinations :) Hence its finally making its way out here :)

Ingredients

1 Medium Sized Brinjal

2 Cup Wheat Flour

1 Spoon Red Chilli Powder

1/4 Spoon Turmeric Powder

1/4 Spoon Jeera Powder

1/4 Spoon Corriander Powder

2-3 Spoon Corriander Leaves

Salt to taste

Oil

Method

• Broil the brinjal in the oven at 500F for 25minutes. Let it cool down
• Remove the cover and smash the brinjal.
• Add red chilli powder, turmeric powder, jeera powder, corriander powder, finely chopped corriander leaves and salt to taste.
• Add wheat flour and make the dough out of it.
• Apply a spoon of oil and knead well and keep aside for 20-30 minutes.
• Make lemon sized balls and roll the 3 fold parathas and cook them on the tawa.
• Serve hot with curd and pickle

Notes

You can roast the brinjal the way we do it for Bharata on the stove. Or you can bake them in the oven but I found that broiling functionality in ovens here is much better than baking when you need the item to be cooked without it oozing out its juices. The last few times I baked the brinjal it oozed lot of juice and then I had to add too much of wheat flour and the parathas lacked the brinjal taste in them.

Tandoori Paneer Pizza And Tri Colored Rice

Tandoori Paneer Pizza  

My favorite dish :) esp paneer flavor.. and I so miss it here. Well there is a food chain which has paneer pizza available here but then I really didn't like the flavor. So i had been meaning to prepare this since ages and finally made it yesterday. It turned out quite nice. I also did little r&d and found out how to do wheat base rather than all maida base - little healthier version :)

Ingredients

4 Cup Wheat Flour

2 Cup Maida

400g Paneer

2.5 Cup Mozarella Cheese

1 Cup Parmesan Cheese

1.5 Cup Milk

5 Spoon Curd

2.25 Spoon Active Dry Yeast

1/2 Onion

1/4 Cup Dried Tomatoes

4 Sweet Bell peppers

1/4 Cup Olive Oil

2 Spoon Butter

1/2 Spoon Sugar

2 Spoon Red Chilli Powder

1/2 Spoon Jeera Powder

1/2 Spoon Corriander Powder

1/4 Spoon Garam Masala

2 Spoon Tandoori Masala

1/2 Spoon Garlic Paste

1/2 Spoon Ginger Paste

1 Spoon Basil Leaves

Salt to taste

Method

• Warm a cup of water, add sugar and active dry yeast. Still well, wrap up with the clinging film and keep aside for 10 minutes to let yeast activate
• In a plate mix wheat flour, maida, olive oil, melted butter, activated yeast and salt to taste
• Add milk and knead the soft dough. Keep it in a large bowl covered with clinging film for around 2 hours to double in size.
• In a bowl, mix curd, garlic paste, ginger paste, jeera powder, corriander powder, garam masala, tandoori masala and salt to taste.
• Marrinate the cubed paneer with this curd mixture and refrigerate it till the time pizza dough is doubling up
• When the dough is doubled up, divide it into two portions and spread it on pizza pans
• Spread parmesan cheese, grated mozarella cheese on top of the pizza base
• Spread the cubed paneer pieces, bell pepper slices, onion slices and dried tomato evenly on top of it
• Sprinkle basil leaves
• Preheat oven to 400F/200C
• Bake the pizza at 400F/200C for 25 minutes

Notes

While activating yeast, the water should be luke warm - just warm to touch otherwise if too hot the yeast would burn up. To know if yeast is activated you need to see if foam is present in the yeast-water-sugar mixture.

When I baked pizza i found that one of the pizza was really risen well and other one was also rised but not as much as the other one. So I binged ;-) a bit and found that the while baking pizza we should be baking only on upper shelve the middle shelf doesnt have enough heat and hence the pizza doesnt rise well in that section. Well tip for me for next time.

Tri Colored Rice

Well, I know its been long since I posted here but I was on a little break from cooking for few weeks. I was busy with work and tired to cook everyday. When I was in India, I use to get this rest when I use to go to pune almost everymonth. Both my mom and mother in law were sweet enough to feed me without doing anything at all :) God.. I miss those days.. Now I had to take this break and rely on MacD/Subway/TacoBell/Husband's cooking once in a while. But now I feel fresh and motivated for cooking again and foremost bored with all the above items.. So here is the new dish that I tried. The recipe is something that I just thought of giving shot and kept on adding ingredients as I felt like. But I am stunned at the outcome. So easy, nutritious and yet good looking dish.

Ingredients

9 Cup Almost cooked Rice

2 Tomatoes

Handful of Corriander Leaves

3 Handsful of Spinach

1 Green Chilli

1 Spoon Corriander Powder

1 Spoon Red Chilli Powder

1/4 Spoom Garam Masala

Roasted Cashews for garnishing

Ghee

Salt to taste

Method

• Add salt in the rice, divide into three parts and keep aside.
• In a mixie grind tomatoes to form the puree. Keep aside
• Grind spinach, corriander leaves and green chilli adding minimal water in it. Keep aside
• Boil the Spinach-corriander leaves puree and let it cook till almost dry and thick enough
• Add corriander powder and 1 part of the rice in it and let it cook and dry completely.
• Add couple of spoons of ghee and mix and cook for another minute. Keep aside.
• Boil tomato puree
• When the puree starts to thicken, add red chilli powder, garam masala and 1 part of the rice.
• When the rice is done and dry sprinkle couple of spoon of ghee and keep aside
• Arranage the rice parts in the rice dish and garnish with the cashews

Notes

When grinding spinach i added little water and only 1/3 of spinach at first. When it was pureed I added another part of spinach and pureed it. That saved me with using extra water and while cooking the spinach wasnt over cooked and didnt have to wait too long for it to thicken.

I boiled rice and when it was almost done, just removed the excess water and ran through cold tap water so that each grain separates out from each other.