Aloo Paneer,Jeera Rice contd from last post.

This is a much delayed continuation of the previous post. I was thinking of posting it the next day of the first one, but I couldn't. That was last working day of the week and had so much to complete, since was taking a break for the Easter weekend. Once back, was caught up between work at both office and personal front. Sorry for this delay.

Now coming back to the recipe, let me start with Aloo Paneer'96. This is Mallika Badrinath's recipe. Not much changes made to the original one. I have no idea why that 96 attached to the name.



Ingredients
Onions - 3 nos
Tomatoes - 2 nos
Paneer made from 1 ltr milk
Potatoes - 1/4 kg
Dhaniya pwdr - 2tbspn
Red chilli pwdr- 1 tspn
Salt to taste
Sugar - 1 tspn
Pav bhaji masala - 1/2 tspn (can use garam masala as in original)
oil for frying
For marinade
tomato ketchup - 3 tblspn
dhania pwdr - 1 1/2 tspn
jeera pwdr - 1/2 tspn
salt - 1/2 tspn
black pepper powder - 1/2 tspn
Method
Cut onions and tomatoes finely.
Peel off the skin from potatoes and cut it length wise as for finger chips. Slice paneer also lengthwise
Mix all the ingredients under marinade and add paneer and potato pieces to it.Keep it aside for half an hour.
Removes the peices alone and keep under hot grill with little butter on top till it turns brown.I did not have the option of grill, so took to the tawa method. It came out very well.
Heat oil in a kadai and fry onions till crisp.
Add dhania powder, chilli powder, pav bhaji masala (or any masala u like ).
Stir for a minute and add tomatoes. Cook till it turns pulpy. Add salt and little sugar.
Stir in the left over marinade and cook for few minutes.
Add grilled potatoes and paneer pieces. Mix gently. Remove from fire.

Jeera rice

Basmati rice -1 cup
Ginger paste- 1/2 tspn
Slit green chilly- 3 nos
Jeera - 2 tspn
Ghee/Oil - 2 tblspn

Onion - 1 no (Optional)

Method
Wash and soak the rice in 2 cups of water for 15 minutes.
Take a microwave safe bowl, Add oil and MW for 30 seconds.
Add jeera and MW for another 30 seconds.
Stir in ginger paste, slit green chillies and MW for 30 seconds.

Chop the onion lengthwise and add to the bowl. MW for 1 or 2 minutes till it is sauted.
Add the soaked rice along with water and add salt as required.
Stir once and MW for 15 minutes.
Mix the rice using a fork at every 5 minutes interval. During the last 5 minutes, you can adjust the timings, depending on your MW and the variety of rice used.

Garnish with coriander and fried cashews if you to make it rich.

Thanks Srivalli, for making me try cooking rice in MW. This is my first attempt. I had doubts if I should try when I was cooking for guests. But I was happy with the result.This is going to Srivalli's monthly MW event. Current month's theme is Rice.

Curd rice is always welcome when we have had some spicy dishes as part of the meal.

Naan, Char Dal ka Dacha and more

Last week, we had invited a cousin of S and his family for dinner. K and his wife are absolute
foodies, that they love to taste new recipes and try them at home too. K also cooks well and plans with his wife to try new ones.

This was the menu I planned for the dinner. It was a weekday. Still I could manage to make as per the menu decided.



Naan
Jeera Rice
Char Dal ka Dalcha
Aloo Paneer -96
Curd Rice
and dates-banana milk shake to finish it off.



I am giving the recipes for Naan and the dal here. Already posted milkshake recipe.

Naan
All purpose flour - 2 cups
Yeast - 1 tspn
Oil - 2 tblspn
Salt to taste
Add yeast with little sugar to 1/2 cup warm water and milk together. Leave it to prove.
Take the flour in a mixing bowl and make a well in the centre. Add yeast, salt and oil and mix
well and add more water to make a stiff dough.
Leave the dough in a bowl and cover it. Allow it to rise. Punch down the risen dough and knead it for sometime and leave for a second rise. Repeat the steps. And finally leave it aside till you prepare the naan. I prepared the dough in the morning and left it till evening. I got very soft naans.

Take a lemon sized ball and roll it in oval shape. Dust it with wheat flour if required.
Heat a kadai. I prefer a iron griddle.
Wet one side of the naan with water and stick that side on to the hot tawa.
Cook for a minute and turn the tawa upside down.
Keep moving the tawa over fire so that the whole naan gets cooked.
You can see brown spots appearing. When it is cooked, it will fall off the tawa.
Smear some homemade butter on to it if you wish.

Char Dal Ka Dalcha
This is a Sanjeev Kapoor recipe. I have been making this many times after my first attempt. It
goes well with both rotis and rice. I change the vegetable added as per the availability.
As the name suggests it calls for combination of 4 dals

Chana dal - 1/4 cup
Tuvar dal - 1/4 cup
Masoor dal - 2 tbl spn
Moong dal - 2 tblspn
Turmeric pwdr - 1tspn
Chilly powder - 1 tspn
salt to taste
Ginger paste - 1 tspn
Ash gourd - 400 gms
Tamarind - lemon sized
Oil - 3 tblspn
Medium sized onions - 2 nos
Slit green chillies - 5


Seasoning
Ghee - 1 tspn
Cumin seed -1
Broken red chillies - 5
Curry leaves


Method

Wash and Pressure cook all the dals together with half tspn of turmeric and half tspn of chilly
powder and enough water to cook the dals.
Chop ash gourd into one inch pieces. The original calls for lauki. Thats one vegetable which I
haven't cooked till now. Somehow I don't have inclination towards that. I have tried this dal with chow chow (Bangalore katthrikkai).

Soak tamarind in warm water and extract the pulp and keep it aside.

Heat oil in a pan. Add sliced onions and saute till light brown.

Add ginger paste, remaining turmeric and chilly powder and green chillies. Saute for a minute.

Add ash gourd pieces. Saute for five minutes and add the cooked dals. Cover and cook for ten minutes or till the ash gourd is tender.


Add tamarind extract and add water to adjust the consistency. Cook on medium heat for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Heat ghee in another pan and do the seasoning with cumin seeds, red chillies and curry leaves.Pour the spices over the dal. Serve hot.

Rest of the recipes will follow in the next post.

Karadayan Nombu Adai (Sweet & Salt)

I know I am late in posting this. Better late than never. My system was down for two days and was busy reviving it. Then it was already late with Arusuvai. So posted that first. This year nombu was celebrated on 14th March. Unlike other festivals, nombu is observed during a specific period of time of the day. The time period is the ending of the month of Maasi (Kumbham) and beginning of Panguni(Meenam), which is called Sankramam. This year it was a convenient time of between 8:00 A.M and 8:30 A.M. After S left to office (he leaves by 7:00 A.M), me and my MIL started with the preprations. The flour was made ready two days before. We prepared both salt and sweet versions of the adai, though only the sweet ones are offered as neivedyam.

Preparing the rice flour for the adais

Wash and soak 3 cups of rice in water for half an hour.

Drain and allow to dry on a kitchen towel for half an hour or so. It should not be dried completely. Some moisture left on it is good.

Powder it from a flour mill or in a mixer grinder.

Seive them to get the fine powder.

Dry roast the rice flour in a kadai till they turn light brown.

You may have to seive again, since some lumps can be found.

Those lumps can be powdered again by giving a run in the mixie again.

Cool and store in an airtight container.

Preparing the Vella Adai
Roasted rice flour - 1 cup

Water - 2 cups

Powdered jaggery - 1 cup

Cooked black eyed peas(vellapayar/karamani) - 2 tblspn

Coconut pieces - 2 tblspn

Ghee - 1 spn

Boil the jaggery along with the measure water. When the jaggery is fully dissolved, remove any scums.

Transfer the strained jaggery water to a kadai. When water starts boiling, add chickpeas, coconut pieces and slowly add the rice flour.

Keep stirring while you add so that it doesn't form lumps. Add a teaspoon of ghee.

Cook till the water is fully absorbed. Leave it to cool.

Take a lemon size of the dough, flatten it on a banana leaf.

Arrange the leaves on a idli mould and steam cook for 10 mitnutes. The test is the adais would have shiny texture.

For neivadyam, adai is offered with a blob of fresh butter. Adai with fresh home made vennai (butter) is heaven.

Uppadai (Salty adai)
For seasoning

Mustard - 1 tspn

Green chillies- 3

Red chilly -2

Coconut pieces- 2 tblspn

Chana dal - 2 tblspn

Oil

Roasted rice flour -1 cup

Water - 2 cups

Salt

In a kadai, do the seasonings as given.

Add water and salt.

When waters starts boiling, tip off the flour into it.

Cook till it reached the upma consistency. Cool and prepare adais in the same way as sweet ones.