Tomato Paneer - Simple Flavorful #kidseat

It is hard to not keep track of dishes your kid loved to eat. Makes into this list this recipe readily. I picked this from a cooking show recently and I knew immediately that it was going to be good.  Bonus, this was really simple to cook on a weeknight.
This goes really well with both rice and roti.

What you need
Paneer
Tomato puree from 3 tomatoes and 1 tomatocut into cubes
Ginger
Green Chili
Cumin powder
Shahi Garam Masala/ Garam Masala
Kasori Methi
Butter


1. Mix 3 tbsp of flour and 1/2 tsp salt. Cut the paneer into cubes. Soak into warm water with salt. If the paneer is  homemade and fresh, you can skip soaking. But it helps the store bought paneer cubes to soften and absorb more flavor through soaking. After soaking for about 10 minutes, coat the paneer cubes in the flour.

2. Heat 1 tbsp of vegetable/canola oil.  Pick up the paneer cubes and shake of excess flour, add to the oil. Fry them lightly and take out when brown spots start to appear. Don't overcook.

3. Puree 3 tomatoes in a grinder. Due to low stock of tomato I used a can of diced tomato and made a puree. No doubt it saves time. But nothing beats fresh produce.

4. Heat 1 tbsp of oil and pour the tomato puree, leaving about a spoon of puree in the grinder. Add a pinch of salt in the pan and start frying. Adjust the temperature to ensure puree does not stick to the vessel. As you fry this, grind an inch of ginger with the rest of the tomato and add to the frying pan.

5. Cook this for a little bit and add 1.5 tsp of cumin powder, salt and turmeric to your taste. You can add chili powder if you like. I didn't because little one can't eat that spicy yet.

6. Let it cook for another couple of minutes and add the tomato cubes. Add 2 tsp shahi garam masala powder. I roasted the whole Shahi GM mix and ground to powder. If you don't have Shahi GM, you can use regular garam masala and a pinch of nutmeg powder.

7. Add salt according to your taste and 1 tbsp of sugar. The sugar nicely balances the tartness of tomato and adds a wonderful color. Keep stirring as the mix thickens. Add little bit of warm water as needed. But it should not become watery.

8. Add 2 tbsp of Kasori Methi by crushing between your palms. Time to add the paneer cubes now. Mix everything well and let them cook for couple of minutes. Paneer should not be cooked for long time, else it becomes hard. Sprinkle little bit of cilantro or coriander leaves if you like.

9. Taste the gravy and adjust salt as needed. Top it off with a dollop of butter and it is ready to serve.



10. Enjoy with hot rice or chapati.

Spinach Veggie - Palong Shak er ghanto! - A bengali veg favorite

Bengali cuisine is often mistaken for serving only fish and non-vegetarian dishes, whereas quite a wide variety of vegetable star dishes cover the spread of bengali cuisine.
One of them is a type of mixed vegetable with Spinach (Palong Shak) being the star of it. Bori - sun dried lentil fritters (shaped more like hershey's kisses) is also a highlight of this dish.

Now let's get cooking.

We need -
1 Potato
1/2 Daikon
1 Eggplant
500 gm Spinach
4 green chilies (optional)
1 inch of ginger - ground or finely grated.

Panch Foron ( A mix of 5 spices - frenuegreek, cumin(/sometimes nigella seeds or kalonjee), fennel, mustard, celerey seeds)
2 Dry red chilis

Cooking oil of your choice.

10 Boris

Process

• Wash all vegetables thoroughly
• Peel and cut potatoes into 1 inch cubes
• Peel and cut Daikon into 1 inch cubes
• Cut eggplants into 1 inch thick and 2 inches long pieces
• Chop spinach into strips. If you are using baby spinach you can leave them as is.

Heat 3 tb spoon of oil ( I use mustard oil) and once the oil  starts to smoke, add the daikons. 

Lightly fry them and set them aside.

Add the potato cubes to the same oil to light fry and set them aside.

• Fry the boris. Be careful about not leave the sight because they easily burn.

• Add the panch foron & dry chilies.
• When crackles, add the eggplant pieces, and then some salt for the veggie to soften.
• Cover and cook them for 3-5 minutes as they become tender but retain their shape.

• Add the potato and daikon and then the ginger paste.
• Chop or slice the green chilies and add at this point.
• Add salt.
• Cover them and cook. Stir occasionally to ensure it does not stick or burn.
• Add very little water if only needed to prevent burning. The vegetables should cook in their own water and steam.
• When they seem cooked , add the spinach.
• Don't cover any more to retain the nice green color.
• Cook until spinach is done.

Remove the mix to a serving bowl.
Crumble the fried bori and sprinkle over the prepared dish.

This is ready now. This goes well with both rice and roti.

Egg Veg Chowmein - Indo Chinese style - For the love of toddlers' taste buds

A big thanks to the friend who insisted on "documenting" recipes from moms of toddlers! It sounded like a great idea to me. Growing up, I remember my mom and neighborhood aunties used to share the actual food among them. If my mom cooked a dish that either the next door girl loved or her mom loved but never prepared at their house because none of the other family members  ate it, and or some other excuses, she will send some of it to them. And the other way would happen too. But now that my mommy friends are not exactly physically next door, sharing recipe and even list of foods that work for their kids can compensate for a lot. We all come across this pretty frequently when we have the physical energy to cook but not enough mental energy to think what to cook. 

Chow Mein has been my long time favorite Sunday breakfast or school tiffin box lunch :) Though it is a very popular street food item of Kolkata and no one really knows the recipe for those delicious noddles, it is also a nutritious way pack vegetables and protein into any kids' meal when home cooked. 

Ingredients: (For 1 kid & 2 adults)

Egg 2-3

Vegetables - Carrots (1/2 cup), french beans (1/4 cup), spring onion (1/4 cup white & green portions each), Green Bell Pepper/Capcicum (1/4 cup)

                     Onion (1/2 cup), ginger - 1/2 inch square, garlic - 3 to 4 cloves depending on taste preference, Coriander leaves(cilantro)

                     Soy sauce, Hot & Sweet Maggi tomato sauce (alternate - ketchup)

I added the vegetables I had left. Otherwise cabbage(1/2 cup) is a definite one to add. Also chili if the target audience can handle :)

 

And of course the noodle. My first choice would be the thin bunch of Asian chowmein noodles.. But if you are like me, you will gladly substitute it with Angel hair pasta noodle to avoid a trip to the Asian store after a long work week. However, I would go for a thin variety. The Kolkata-chinatown spoilt taste bud would mind otherwise.

Process

Bring 2 cups of water to boil for half a pound of the noodle ( or follow instruction from the packet). 

Add a pinch of salt

Add a tea spoon of oil to avoid the sticking of the strings.

Meanwhile, chop all the vegetables into thin stripes except,

Spring onion and garlic - chop and crush respectively.

Keep an eye on the noodle so that they don't get mushy.

In a wok, heat 2 table spoons of oil.

Add the chopped cilantro, crushed garlic, only a few strips of ginger and capsicum. (This will give the Indo-chinese aroma)

Saute that for a minutes to flavor the oil and then add the onions, white part of the spring onion.

Fry them at medium high and add only a pinch of salt. 

Don't forget your boiling noodles. If they are done, strain them. and keep aside. If not done that's good because best would be to time it to be ready when the vegetables are done.

Add the other remaining vegetables one at a time and  fry each one for couple of minutes in this order - beans, cabbage (if used), carrots, remaining ginger and capsicum

Add some freshly ground black pepper and cook for 3-4 minutes. Babysit the vegetables so they neither burn nor get mushy.
Add 2 tea spoons of soy sauce and 2 table spoon of tomato sauce/kethup. You can go light with the tomato ketchup and then each can add to their plate as needed.

Add 2 tea spoons of vinegar. 

Mix everything well.

Add the strained noodles little bit at a time. Mix it and then add more. Two serving spoons or the pasta serving is the best tool to toss and mix. 

Taste test the salt at this point. I go easy with the salt because soy sauce has a lot in it. 

Scramble the eggs to add to the chow mein and that is now a dish ready to serve.

The little and toughest critique finished dinner in 20 minutes as opposed to ..... let me not go there. So that is the approval criteria for any recipe in the house any more. 

Try and share your take on the recipe.

A beautiful piece of Salmon - a delicious dish for everyone

Paneer Matar

Another week night quick dinner. I call this "Paneer Matar" instead of the commonly known "Matar Paneer" because I hardly followed any traditional recipe for that dish. My dish pretty much included the two main items - "Paneer" and "Matar" :) 

The rest of them are really what I could get going fast.

I have been thinking of making a once a week routine of only vegetarian food. Without any "Vrat" in my list, I simply chose Tuesday as my mother in law does the same. 

In a typical bengali house, vegetarian food excludes Onion and Garlic. So this dish made on a Tuesday night had to omit them.

What I did

• Cut the paneer (store bought in this case) in cubes.
• Marinate for 5-10mins with salt and turmeric.
• Boil enough water to immerse the paneer cubes and add salt to it. Keep aside.
• Lightly fry the paneer cubes and soak them in the warm water. 

   If you are using fresh paneer you don't need to fry them. You can simply soak then in the warm water.

• I threw in some frozen peas (washed) in the same water to soak.

Now,

• in the pan/kadhai(wok), add white oil. (vegetable/canola). 
• Based on the material of the pan, you may or may not need to pre-heat it before adding the oil.
• Add Kalo Jeere/ nigella seeds/Onion seeds and one red chili to the oil
• Once, splatters, add one chopped tomato, followed by little bit of salt for the tomato to cook fast.
• When the tomatoes are mushy add green chilli - chopped if everyone in the family can eat spicy food, or throw in couple of whole as I did.

• Now, make a little space and add half a table spoon sugar. Let it caramelize and then mix with the tomato paste.
• Add some cilantro or coriander leave (dhone pata) and bhaja moshla* at this point.

• Let them all get friendly together in medium to low heat while you keep an eye on them so that no burns occur.
• Next when you don't smell the raw tomato any more, add some crushed kasuli methi. This is optional but I love the taste of it.
• Now time for the stars to enter. Drain the water and add the paneer and peas (matar) to the masala.

• Mix them all together followed by adding a cup of warm water.

• Boil it for 5-7 mins. Paneer should not be overcook, otherwise it will become hard. Not good! 

And that is it! Taste your dish, adjust salt and spice. Ready to serve with either roti or on top of hot rice.

Oh, I added a blob of butter at the end for the little one. You can skip but you can add it too :) 

FaNki-Baji Murgi Kosha - Shortcut Chicken dish

After a long hectic week, Friday dinner is most likely to be a "don't have to cook" dinner. The previous night is even worse for me - it is like, almost there, but I am panting and I still have to keep running to finish the race - not sure against whom or for what trophy though! But got to keep going, right? So Thursday is "almost no cooking" dinner. It is either a combination of leftover or something really easy to bake dinner or whatever I am making for the little one - make that a little more and add some chilies to it - dinner.

But it is different when your better half is coming home after a week long international trip from a country with tremendously bland food and through the battle of 3 airlines and 2 delays and etc. and etc. You really want to cook something nice for dinner. But again you have guarded the castle back here which at least to you seemed like the very similar battle like his, you are not up for throwing a fancy grand feast. Hence, I resort to shortcuts like these! 

This chicken dish is inspired from a recipe of "Roast Chicken" I saw online long ago - that started with frying the chicken instead of frying a paste of onion which takes forever. Thankfully I didn't bother to do any grocery this week so I was out of tomato and yogurt - so I couldn't have anyway cooked my mom's traditional chicken curry either (convenient) :)

So what I did....

With the chicken (~ 1lb/half a kg)

Thaw > wash > marinate with salt, turmeric, and ginger-garlic paste for as long as you need to get other things ready. Go easy with the salt or even skip it - I will tell you why.

Freshly made ginger garlic paste would be better but again, I was guarding the castle so I used ready-made store bought paste. I prefer to use fresh whenever possible but I always keep a jar handy for times such as this.

Red onion > I did fine Julian cut about 75% of a big red onion.

Add about 3 Tb spoon oil to the pan 

> when the oil heats up, add the onion to it and fry them. You don't want them to get very soft or mushy. If you know what Beresta or fried onion is that is what you are trying to achieve here.

> Take them out and keep aside. If you use the mentioned measurement of oil, you should still have some good amount left in the pan.

In that remaining oil, 

> Add whole Shahi Garam Masala or whole Biriyani Masala. If your pantry doesn't have a stock of either, simply use whole Garam Masala - Cinnamon, Cloves & Cardamom.

> Add the marinated chicken. Fry for little bit - enough to get the raw color out. If you get chicken which cooks easily - be careful not to over cook it.

> Add chopped green chilies. If you are fond of dried red chilies, add them to the oil with whole spices.

> Add handful of Biriyani Masala - I used Shan's Chicken Biriyani masala. This has salt in it - that's why I add very little to start with or skip it entirely. I taste the dish towards the end and decide if I need to add any.

> The original recipe I think added beaten yogurt at this point but due to lack of it tonight, I reduced the flame, waited for 3-4minutes and then added about a cup of milk ( whole/full fat).

 > Let it cook in low flame for few minutes to ensure the chicken is fully cooked and it got some time to absorb all the spices.

> Add the fried onions. Mix them with the entire dish well. You want them to retain their form. You don't want them to get mushy.

> Turn the gas off. Cover it for 5mins.

> Spread half Tbsp of ghee.

And you are done!

Unda curry? or Egg masalaa! naki Dim kosha :)

I created this blog account long time ago but kept second gusseing myself about which should be my very first recipe post. Eventually I delayed so much that now I feel i would decide on nothing and this blog will keep having no post. Finally I decided, the very first post should be the recipe which I  successfully cooked for the first time and hence, the egg curry! Yes that was my first successful and only popular dish among friends and the then boyfriend now husband. This has also been one of my favorite dishes for a long time - the best being cooked by my Ma and my lt. Pisuthamma!

There are other egg curries which were and will never be my favorite but I will never forget about few of them. One is Chetta's unda-currryyy! Now some of you already know what I am talking about. For rest, when I was in Trivundrum for a training, the only reasonable dinning option used to have some kind of curry everyday. If you are smart and good planner you will be there by 7:30pm and Chetta (local term for brother) -the food corner owner will greet you with a big smile announcing the menu that there is unda(egg) curry today. And that was a luxury! An hour later there will be Onion curry with little less smile- basically the left out curry part of the evening unda curry. The luxurious unda curry constituted of fried onions in boiled turmeric water and a boiled egg dropped in the pool. As much as I would love to get back to any dinner with the friends from then but I don't feel the same way about the most (read only) wanted dish there. However, thanks to Chetta we all started to appreciate home made food a lot more - simple or special. 

Here goes the recipe of the egg curry I make and my friends loved....

I will give the measurement for 4 eggs but I usually eyeball most of the ingredients and I will encourage anyone trying this recipe to do the same.

4 large or 5 small  eggs --> 1onion julianed --> 0.5 inch ginger grated --> 3-4 cloves garlic grated --> 1-2 chilies finely chopped --> 1 tomato --> sugar, salt, turmeric, milk, Garam masala

Note: Garam masala in Bengali cuisine = Labanga(Lawng/clove) + elach (elaichi/cardamom) + darchini ( cinnamon stick) 

Step1: Boil the eggs fully and peel

Step2: Sauté the peeled eggs in medium heat. This is a major difference between many other egg curry preparations - pleazzz don't skip. It shouldn't burn but most of the surface area should get brown color and crisp. 

Step3: Heat oil and add whole but slightly crushed garam masala & 1 tej pata ( bay leaves). 

Step4: As the above crackles goes onion+ginger+ garlic+chili. Add little salt. Heat on medium. Stir it occasionally to avoid sticking or burning but let it cook on its own for the most part. 

Step5: Add the chopped tomato (its perfectly fine to just cut the tomato in half and squeeze them into)and add 1tbsp sugar(yes :))

Step6: Now it's time to keep a closer watch- as the onion mixture browns keep stirring and avoid burning. You shouldn't get any more raw onion/ginger/garlic smell. 

Step7:  Add 1 serving spoon size milk but before that reduce the flame for few minutes so that the milk doesn't curdle. 

Step8: Add the fried eggs to the gravy, add salt as per taste and cook till the gravy and egg mix well with each other. You can add water at this point if you want more "jhol" / gravy or you can stop right here for a "Makha-Makha" / dry dish. 

Taste your curry and Adjust salt if needed, otherwise you are done. If you are big garam masala an you can add garam masala powder right before taking it off the flame. 

That's my dim-er kosha/jhol everyone liked. I (off course) messed it up when I cooked the same for in-laws upon my hubby announcing how popular my egg-curry is  and I knew the difference in taste. I am sure you won't do that! 

Anyway as a positive ending to the story I flared with the same dish and more delicious food before them and my parents! 

Happy cooking!