My Sunday Brunch :)

Yesterday being Sunday we had a yummy brunch. Dad had bought kilos of carrot a couple of days back and it was waiting to be made into halwa (a traditional Indian sweet). Yesterday I managed to pick up fresh spinach and cottage cheese.
So, here we go with my Sunday brunch menu…Carrot halwa, Butter naan with Palak paneer (both recipes by Tarla Dalal) and curd rice.


First the dough for the butter naan has to be made – you have to wait for 3 hours to roll it out and cook them!




Ingredients for butter naan –
Plain flour – 3 cups
Baking powder – 2 level tsps
Fresh curd – ½ cup
Butter – 4 tsps
Sugar – 4 tsps
Ghee – 2 to 4 tsps
Salt – 1 ½ tsps
Milk – ½ cup

Sieve the flour. Add the sugar and salt. Apply the butter to the flour.
Make a well in the centre. Put the baking powder in the centre and cover with the curd. Wait for ½ minute.
Make a soft dough by adding the milk and enough water. Knead the dough very well. Add the ghee and knead again.
Keep the dough under a wet cloth for 3 hours.
Roll out naans in the shape of triangles. Bake in a tandoor. Serve hot with butter.

My tip – Make the dough a tad loose, using a little more water (don’t add more milk), to make the naans fluffy and light!

Next I went ahead with the curd rice coz I always feel curd rice tastes best a couple of hours after preparation.




Ingredients for curd rice-
Raw rice – ¾ cup
Water - 2 ¾ cups
Milk – ¼ cup
Curd – 1 ¼ cups
Finely chopped green chillies – 1 tbsp
Finely chopped ginger – 1 ½ tsps
Finely chopped fresh coriander leaves – 2 tbsps
Finely chopped curry leaves – ½ tsp
Gingelly oil – 1 tsp
Mustard seeds – ½ tsp
Broken urad dal – ½ tsp
Asafoetida powder – a pinch
Salt 1 ½ tsps

Wash the rice and pressure cook with water.
While the rice is hot, mash really well, slowly adding the milk.
When completely mashed, add the curd, curry leaves, coriander leaves and salt. Heat the oil, add mustard, urad, ginger, green chillies and asafoetida. Fry on a slow flame until golden brown. Add this to the curd rice.

You can actually eat it immediately, but I like the curd rice to absorb the flavours of the rest of the ingredients before relishing it! Try both ways and see which you prefer!
You can add some fried cashews, or fresh green grapes, or even pomegranate, according to your taste.

Okay so now what do we do with the spinach and cottage cheese? Palak paneer! I love Tarla Dalal’s Punjabi style recipe. I agree, it involves a lot of preparation, but its worth the effort! Trust me!

Ingredients for Palak paneer -
Paneer – 150g cut into cubes
Spinach / palak – 6 cups washed and chopped
Garlic paste – 1 tsp
Ginger paste – 1 tsp
Dried fenugreek leaves / kasuri methi – 1 tsp
Punjabi garam masala – 1 tsp (scroll down for recipe)
Sugar – 1 tsp
Fresh cream – ¼ cup
Finely chopped tomatoes – ¼ cup
Black salt – ¼ tsp
Oil – 2 tsp
Butter – 1 tsp
Salt to taste

For the white gravy –
Sliced onions – 1 cup
Cashewnuts – 3 tbsp
Melon seeds – 1 tbsp
Green chillies – 2
Combine all the ingredients with 1 cup of water and simmer for 15 minutes. Cool and blend to a smooth paste.

Boil 4 cups of water with salt and cook palak till tender. Make sure to retain the colour of the leaves. Blend to a smooth puree.
Heat the oil and butter in a pan and add the ginger, garlic and tomatoes. Sauté for sometime until the mixture leaves the oil.
Add the white gravy, spinach puree, black salt and salt. Stir for a minute.
Add the paneer cubes, kasuri methi, garam masala, sugar, cream and bring to a boil. Serve hot.

My twists to the recipe –
I steamed the palak instead of boiling it in water, since I always prefer steaming vegetables.
If you feel lazy to make the Punjabi garam masala at home, no worries! Just use the regular garam masala and don’t feel bad about it! It’s a good substitute.
You can fry the paneer before adding it to the gravy, it tastes much better! Fry paneer quickly in hot oil on a high flame (preferably on a non-stick pan), turning it frequently.
To save time, prepare the white gravy mixture and cook the palak. By the time you prepare your rest of the ingredients both will get cooled down to be blended. (Its hard to blend hot stuff)
I used olive oil, which is healthy and also adds to the taste.

Ingredients for Punjabi garam masala –
I was lucky today, mom had already made this in advance, so I just used it!

Cumin seeds – 100g
Cardamom – 75g
Peppercorn – 65g
Coriander seeds – 35g
Fennel seeds – 35g
Cloves – 20g
Cinnamon – 15g
Mace (optional) – 20g
Caraway seeds – 20g
Bay leaves – 15g
Ginger powder – 15g
Nutmeg – 3

Dry roast all the ingredients except ginger powder till you feel the aroma of the spices. Grind to a fine powder. Add the ginger powder and mix well. Sieve and store in an air – tight container.

Finally, I will add my own recipe for carrot halwa. I’m giving you the measures for a large quantity, cut down the measures proportionately if you are making a lesser quantity. I used the reddish pink carrots, popularly called Delhi carrot, instead of the orange ones.

Ingredients for carrot halwa -
Grated carrot – 9 cups
Sugar – 3 ¾ cups
Milk – 3 cups
Broken cashew – 1/3 cup
Melted ghee – ½ cup

Cook the carrot along with milk and sugar. Keep stirring constantly, till the mixture becomes thick. Add the ghee. Stir till it leaves the sides of the pan. Serve hot garnished with fried cashews.

Make sure you use a thick bottomed pan.