Strawberry cupcakes

Strawberry Cupcakes

These cupcakes are made with golden sugar and real strawberry filling!

Indian dinner

Let me share a simple dish made with ladies finger…don’t be apprehensive about the curd in the recipe. Trust me, it tastes great. This is one of the very few recipes that I like in Mallika Badrinath’s book.

Ladies finger Masala

Ladies finger - ½ kg
Green chillies – 3
Chilli powder – 1 ½ tsp
Salt
Coriander powder – 2 tsp
Cumin powder – ½ tsp
Sugar – 1tsp (optional)
Tomato – 1
Fresh thick curds – 2 cups
Garam masala – ½ tsp
Cashew – 15
Onions – 4 or 5
Poppy seeds- 1tbsp
Oil for deep frying

Cut ladies finger into 1.5” pieces. Deep fry in hot oil till light brown.
Dice onion and tomato into 1” pieces.
Slit green chillies vertically.
Dry roast poppy and cashew separately.
Fry onions till transparent in little oil.
Grind the onions, poppy seeds and cashew together.
Heat oil in a pan, tamper cumin seeds with a little fenugreek. Add green chillies and ground paste. Stir constantly in medium flame until golden brown.
Add sugar, salt, chilli powder, coriander powder and cumin powder. Continue frying till oil separates.
Add strained and whipped curds, tomato and ladies finger. Bring to a boil.

I served this dish with chappathis...I guess it goes well with poori too!

Irresistable Italian food!

I like to eat different types of food and I get easily bored when I eat the same stuff repeatedly when I go to a restaurant. Most restaurants have a standard menu and over time it gets monotonous...
This often happens when I want to eat pizza..I love pizza and pasta....but most restaurants in Chennai offer them with a tomato base. So I decided to try something different at home, with a basil pesto. Some day I would like to make the pizza from scratch, but for now I used a ready made Pizza base. Using basil pesto as the base, I made the pizza and pasta.

Basil pesto is best when used fresh. You may also store it in the fridge for about five days. Remember to use an airtight container, and coat the pesto with olive oil.

Pizza Gardenia (Tarla Dalal)



For the vegetable topping-
1 red pepper (Tarla says sliced, but I prefer cubed)
1 green pepper, cubed
1 zucchini, sliced
1 onion, cubed
1 eggplant, sliced
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 tsp butter
1 tbsp olive oil

I also used one yellow pepper

Other ingredients

1 cup mozzarella cheese, grated

To prepare the vegetable topping -
Heat the butter and olive oil in a pan, add all the remaining ingredients and cook over a high flame, stirring continuously till the vegetables are slightly browned. remove and keep aside.

Place one pizza base on a greased baking tray.

I always use a parchment paper for my tray when I bake pizza

Spread half of the pesto on top of the pizza base. Top with half of the roasted vegetables and mozzarella cheese.

Bake in a preheated oven at 180C for ten minutes.

As I mentioned earlier, I tried making pasta using the pesto...it turned out quite well..

2 1/2 cups cooked penne
1/2 cup basil pesto
2tbsp Olive oil
2tbsp grated cheese

Heat oilve oil in a pan. Add pesto. Fry for a few minutes until cooked. Add the cooked penne. Cook till the pesto coats the pasta. Add grated cheese. Simmer until the cheese melts.

Garden Fresh - Poori with Aloo methi and Dal

A few days back I tried a Punjabi recipe from Tarla Dalal's book. It is a very simple dish, using few ingredients. This recipe uses fenugreek leaves, which is available in small bunches in the market. Be careful when you clean the leaves - the best way is to cut off the roots before opening the bunch. Then, clean the leaves several times in water.
Today I tried a combination - poori with aloo methi and dal. This is one of the best dinners I have ever had!



1 1/2 cups peeled and boiled potatoes
4 cups fresh fenugreek (methi) leaves
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp chopped garlic
1 tbsp chopped ginger
2 whole dry red chillies, dry roasted and broken into pieces
1 tsp finely chopped green chillies
2 tsp coriander powder
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
1/4 tsp asafoetida
4 tbsp oil
Salt to taste

Wash the fenugreek leaves and chop them finely. Sprinkle some salt over them and keep aside for half an hour.
Squeeze out all the water and keep aside.
Heat the oil in a pan and add the cumin seeds.
When they crackle, add the ginger, garlic, green chillies, red chillies and salt.
Add the potatoes and stir fry them for 5 minutes.
Add the fenugreek leaves, coriander powder, turmeric powder and asafoetida.
Cook covered for ten minutes on a low flame.
Serve hot.




Moong dal - 1/2 cup
Water - 2 cups + 3/4 cup
Salt to taste
Turmeric powder - 1/4 cup
Ghee - 2 tsp
Cumin seeds - 2 tsp

Wash the dal and pressure cook with 2 cups of water.
Mash the dal very well.
Add 3/4 cup water and bring to a boil.
Add salt and turmeric powder and simmer for a few minutes.
Heat the ghee, add the cumin seeds. Once the seeds crackle, pour it into the dal.

Basundhi

Basundhi is my all time favorite sweet. But I have never attempted to make it at home. I always thought it was a cumbersome process, but I realised I was totally wrong! Today I tried making it, and it turned out really well. Try my recipe...

Milk - 1 litre
Sugar - 3 tsp
Ghee - 1 tsp
Finely sliced almond & pista to garnish

Boil the milk on a slow flame. Keep stirring it once in a few minutes. Keep mixing the cream that forms on top. Keep boiling till 3/4th of the milk is reduced. This took about an hour. Add sugar. Remove from fire.
Cool completely. Refridgerate. Garnish with almonds and pista roasted in ghee.
P.S. I have not added my basundhi picture coz we finished eating it before I could click!

Quick starter!

Cauliflower florets – 4 ½ cups
Diced onion – ½ cup
Diced capsicum – ½ cup
Corn flour – ½ cup
Kashmiri chilli powder – 2 tsp
Salt to taste
Oil for deep frying
Chopped coriander – 2 tbsp to garnish

Immerse the cauliflower florets in hot salted water for ten minutes. Drain.

Add the corn flour, salt and chilli powder when the cauliflower is still damp. Deep fry in hot oil and keep aside. Fry the onion and capsicum separately.

Mix all the vegetables and sauté together in a pan for a few minutes. Garnish with chopped coriander.

Ubiquitous Rava Upma!

Hi!
Ok! Ok! Ok!
I can see the smirk on most faces when you are reading this. Upma is a common dish in South Indian homes and at least 6 out of 10 people I know hate it. But, according to me, any dish is interesting when it tastes good. We often do not pay much attention and care to cook simple dishes and that is where we go wrong. The best thing about Upma is that it can be made in a jiffy and its a wholesome dish too! I’m sharing my recipe of Upma, and I’m sure you will love it…trust me!

Ghee – 1 tsp
Gingelly oil – 4 tbsp
Semolina/ Rava – 1 ½ cups
Boiling water – 5 cups
Finely chopped onion – 1 ½ cups
Roughly chopped green chillies – 2 ½ tbsp
Finely chopped ginger – 1 tbsp
Mustard – ½ tsp
Broken urad/black gram – 1 tsp
Bengal gram dal – 1 ½ tsp
Fresh curry leaves loosely packed – ¼ cup

I used a non stick pan to cook this dish, so that the upma is completely non – sticky.

Heat the ghee in a pan and fry the rava on a slow flame. Keep frying until you are able to smell the rava. Keep aside.

Heat 3 tbsp oil in a pan. Add bengal gram dal, urad dal and mustard, in the same order, leaving a few seconds gap in between each addition.

Add the green chillies, curry leaves, onion and fry till the onion is translucent.

Pour the boiling water into the vegetables. After 3 minutes, add the rava, little by little. Keep stirring constantly to avoid lumps. Cook for 7 – 8 minutes.

Finally, add the remaining oil and mix well. Cook for 2 minutes.

Go Chinese!

After a long time I tried cooking some Chinese food at home today...Strictly speaking, we cannot call this authentic Chinese food coz Chinese generally use a lot of sausage, fish oil, oyster oil and beaten eggs in their cooking. I'm a vegetarian but I like to try dfferent cuisines. So you can probably call this a fried rice with a Chinese touch.

Traditionally Chinese use peanut oil in their cooking, but I prefer using olive oil. It gives a good flavour to the food and I believe its healthy. I also used a wok, that's the best for quick frying. Method wise I try to follow the Chinese way, for eg. chopping vegetables very finely, quick frying on high flame, etc.

1 1/2 cups Long grained / basmati rice
1/2 cup french beans
1/2 cup carrot
1/2 cup capsicum
1 cup spring onion whites
1 cup spring onion greens
1 tbsp celery
1 tsp soya sauce
a pinch MSG
Oil
Salt to taste

Wash and soak rice for 30 minutes.Drain and keep aside.
Thinly slice into strips beans, carrot and capsicum. Slice onion and greens. chop celery.
Cook the rice in 10 cups of boiling water along with salt and little oil. Drai n the water. Immediately pour cold water on top and toss with a little oil.
Heat the oil in a wok on a high flame and add the vegetables, except for the spring onion greens. Add the MSG and stir fry until vegetables are soft.
Add soya sauce, spring onion greens, salt and rice. Mix well and saute for a couple of minutes.

I made a Hong Kong style vegetable from Tarla Dalal's recipe to go with it...

2 cups parboiled mixed vegetable cubes (carrot, beans, baby corn)
1 capsicum, cut into big pieces
2 tsp finely chopped ginger
1 tsp finely chopped garlic
3 to 4 whole dry red chillies, broken into pieces
2 pinches MSG
2 tbsp soya sauce
2 tsp white vinegar
2 tsp chilli sauce
1 1/2 cups water
2 tbsp cornflour, dissolved in 1/4 cup water
a pinch sugar
2 tbsp oil
salt and pepper to taste

Heat the olive oil in a wok over a high flame, add he vegetables, chillies and MSG and stir fry for 2 minutes.
Add the soya sauce, vinegar, chilli sauce, sugar, salt and pepper and mix well.
Add the cornflour mixture and water and simmer for some time.
Serve hot!

Happy 2010!!!

Hi
Its been quite a while since I updated my blog. I would have actually posted a very delicious and simple dal recipe. My idea got ruined coz my brother deleted the pic of my dal by mistake :(
Of course I didn't want to share the recipe without showing you how it looks like. So excuse me for my absence!

But I'm back with loads of stuff!!!


Since we had a long weekend around new year I kept cooking a lot of stuff...

Schezhuan noodles -

Hakka noodles - 200g
Finely chopped garlic - 4 tsp
Chopped celery - 2 tbsp
Cut into thin strips (carrots, capsicum, beans, cabbage) - 4 cups
Schezuan sauce - 1/2 cup
Olive oil - 6 tbsp
Chilli oil - 2 tbsp

First prepare the chilli oil.

For this you will need 1 cup olive oil and 20 red chillies, torn into pieces. Heat oil until smoking point and add the chillies. Remove from flame. Cool for 2 hours. Strain and use.

Next make the noodles.

Boil water with a tbsp of oil and salt to taste.
Add the noodles and cook until done.
Drain water. Pour some cold water. Mix 2 tbsp olive oil.

Heat the oil and chilli oil in a wok on a high flame. Add garlic and saute until golden brown.
Add celery and all vegetables. Saute for 5 minutes.
Add Schezuan sauce, salt and cook for a minute.
Add the noodles and mix well.

Jeera rice -

Basmati rice - 1 cup
Water - 1 3/4 cups
Jeera - 1/4 cup
Ghee - 1/2 cup
Salt to taste

Boil rice with salt until done.

Heat ghee in a kadai. Add jeera. Fry until golden brown.

Add to the rice and mix well.

Try this with a rich n delicious accompaniment -

Aloo Laajawaab ( Tarla Dalal )

To be ground into a smooth paste-
4 tbsp cashewnuts
1 tsp roughly chopped garlic
1 tsp roughly chopped ginger
2 tbsp water

Other ingredients -
Oil for deep frying (I used olive oil)
2 cups potato cubes (unpeeled)
2 tbsp cashewnuts, split into halves
1/2 cup chopped onion
5 tbsp ghee
1 tsp caraway seeds
1/4 tsp turmeric powder
1 tsp kitchen king masala
1 tsp chilli powder
3 tbsp beaten curds
1/2 cup milk
1 tbsp finely chopped coriander to garnish

Heat the oil in a pan and deep fry potatoes till golden brown. Drain and keep aside.
In the same oil fry cashew. Drain and keep aside.
Heat the ghee and add caraway seeds.
When the seeds crackle, add turmeric powder, kitchen king masala,chilli powder and onion and saute for 30 seconds.
Add the cashewnut paste and saute for 3 minutes.
Add the curd, milk and 1/2 cup of water and allow it to come to a boil.
Add the potatoes and simmer for 2 minutes.
Garnish with cashewnuts and coriander.

Vegetable Biryani

I'm going to share an authentic biryani recipe with you now. I did not create this recipe, in fact my aunt Radhika came up with this absolutely delicious recipe....
Trust me, once you taste this you will never eat biryani at restaurants.

This recipe involves a lot of procedures. Try to find somebody to help you or do it on a day when you have all the patience in the world!

Here we start -

First, chop the vegetables. Carrot, potatoes, beetroot, knol khol and capsicum have to be diced. Beans have to be cut into long strips. Small onions have to be just peeled. Don't chop them. Clean pudhina, pluck the leaves. Make sure you don't use the stem. Let me give you the quantities now -

Carrot - 3/4 cup
Beans - 3/4 cup
Potato - 3/4 cup
Capsicum - 3/4 cup
Small onion - 1 cup
Beetroot - 1/2 cup
Knol khol - 1/2 cup
Pudhina - 1/2 bunch

Steam each vegetable separately. Cook only till half done. Heat 2 tbsp refined oil and 2 tbsp ghee in a pan and toss the vegetables, again separately.

Soak 1 cup Basmati rice for 20 minutes.

Meanwhile grind the following into a smooth paste, adding very little water -

Clove - 8
Cardamom - 4
Poppy seeds - 2 tsp
Saunf - 1 tsp
Cinnamon - 4 sticks
Green chilli - 4
Red chilli - 2
Coriander seeds - 1 tsp
Pepper - 6
Coconut - 1/4 scraped
Ginger - 1.5 "
Garlic - 5
Tomato - 1
Pudhina - 1/2 bunch

Heat 2 tbsp oil and 2 tbsp ghee. Add the following -
Clove - 2
Cinnamon - 2
Bay leaf - 2
Garlic - 5
Once the garlic turns golden brown, add the ground paste, salt and 1/4 tsp turmeric powder. Fry till you get a nice aroma. Add the vegetables.

Next extract 1 cup thick coconut milk. Mix 1 cup water with it. Cook the rice in this mixture along with salt till 3/4th cooked.

Mix the cooked rice and the vegetables together. Pressure cook for ten minutes.

Southern Spice

The last few weekends I have been trying out a lot of new recipes. Trying new recipes is not an easy thing to do. It involves a lot of time and effort. Today I was in no mood to search for recipes and go grocery and vegetable shopping. So I decided to cook a simple meal. This is a traditional South Indian dish and quite easy to make.

I did it my own way and it turned out quite nice.

Here you go!

Bisibelabath

Raw rice – 1 ½ cups
Tuar dal – 1/3 cup
Tomato, cut into cubes – ½ cup
Potato, cut into cubes – ¾ cup
Carrot, cut into strips – ¾ cup
Beans, cut into strips – ¾ cup
Yellow pumpkin, cut into cubes - 3/4 cup
Small onion, peeled – ¾ cup
Peas – ½ cup

Gingelly oil – 5 tbsp
Jaggery - 2 tbsp
Tamarind water – ¾ cup
Turmeric powder – ½ tsp
Ghee – 2 tbsp
Salt to taste

Fry the following ingredients in 1½ tsp oil till golden brown. Grind to a smooth paste, using water–

Dry coriander – 3 tbsp
Bengal gram dal – 1 1/2 tbsp
Broken urad dal – 1 1/2 tbsp
Fenugreek – 1/2 tsp
Red chillies – 10
Pepper – 15
Scraped coconut – 1/3 cup
Asafoetida – 1/8 tsp

To tamper -

Mustard - 1 tbsp
Broken urad dal - 1 tbsp
Red chillies - 2
Curry leaves - few

Soak rice and dal in water for 30 minutes.

Heat the oil, add vegetables and fry for a few minutes.

Add the tamarind water, jaggery paste, turmeric powder, ground paste, salt, rice and dal, along with 7 cups of water.

Pressure cook.

Once its done, smash the rice and dal well.

Top it with the spices tampered in a mixture of ghee and gingelly oil for a yummy bisibelabath!

Poori and Vegetable Kurma - A rendezvous

Hiiiiiiiiiiii!!!!!

Feeling tired?
No mood to cook an elaborate meal?
Well, I was in the same state of mind 3 hours back….

Try this dish….you can make it in a jiffy....and it tastes delicious!

Ingredients for Vegetable Kurma

Chopped vegetables (Potatoes, beans, carrot, peas, cauliflower, beetroot) – 2 ½ cups
Chopped tomatoes – ¼ cup
Shajeera – 1 tsp
Olive oil / refined oil – 2 tbsp
Turmeric powder – ½ tsp
Salt to taste
Water 1 ½ cups
Chopped coriander – to garnish

Grind to a smooth paste -
Chopped onion – 1 cup
Chopped garlic – 1 tbsp
Chopped ginger – 1 tbsp
Chopped green chilli – 3 tbsp
Grated coconut – ¾ cup
Clove – 4
Cardamom – 2
Cinnamon – 2 inch stick
Aniseed – 1 tsp
Bay leaf – 1
Peppercorns – 10
Water – ½ cup

Follow 5 easy steps to make a delicious kurma-

Steam vegetables until soft.

Heat oil in a pan. Add shajeera. Wait for half minute.

Add the paste. Fry for 5 minutes.

Add tomatoes, turmeric powder and salt.

Once the oil separates from the gravy add the boiled vegetables and the remaining water. Bring to a boil.

Garnish with chopped coriander.

Ingredients for Poori –

Wheat flour – 2 cups
Rava / sooji – 1/8 cup
Warm milk – 1 ½ cups
Salt to taste
Oil – for deep frying

Knead all ingredients into a soft dough.

Roll into small circles.

Deep fry in hot oil.

For oil free pooris, fry them immediately after the dough is made.

The beauty and the beast!

Do I talk to you about how spongy n tasty my Victoria Sponge Cake turned out? Or how I made a disaster of it with my stupid whipped cream icing?

Well, yesterday I was in a happy mood and wanted to bake a cake. Folks at home are tired of my Chocolate cakes, so, for a change, I wanted to try Rachel Allen's Victoria Sponge Cake. The recipe was quite simple and I started off, all excited!

Let me share my precious recipe with you now...

Rachel Allen's Victoria Sponge Cake

125g butter, softened
175g castor sugar
3 eggs
175g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp milk

Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F).

Grease and flour the sides of two 18cm (7in) cake tins, and line with greaseproof paper.

Cream the butter until soft, then gradually add the sugar, and beat until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one by one, beating well all the time.

Sieve the flour and baking powder, and stir in gently, then stir in the milk until just combined.

Divide the mixture between the two tins, hollowing it slightly in the centre, so that it will be flat on top when cooked.

Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until the centre of the cake springs back when you push it gently. Turn out onto a wire rack and allow it to cool. (Place the cake that will become the top layer on its base so that the top isn't marked by the cooling rack.)

Hmmmmmmmmm.............it was absolutely delicious! The smell was great! Fresh! And it was so so so soft!

Did I leave it at that? No! I almost killed the cake with a spoilt whipped cream icing. The icing actaully turned out so beautifully, a lavender base with pink flowers. I was waiting to taste it. So, as soon as I was done with my icing I cut a piece and ate it. Yuck! The cream tasted sour! I quickly went and checked my whipping cream pack, well, you guessed it right. It expired about 2 months back.

Now, I put on my thinking cap.......think....think...think.....

Of course, I did not have the heart to throw away my yummy spongy cake... so, guess what I did? I scraped the icing off the cake, cleaned up all the mess and went to bed!

Today I got back from work, determined to ice my delicious sponge cake.

But before getting into the icing bit I had to make dinner. Mom had gone out, so I had to cook. I like to try new stuff, so today I created a delicious pasta recipe on my own!

Aparna's pasta (Will anybody name my pasta?!)

200g pasta
100g zucchini
100g eggplant
400g tomatoes
100g onion
1/4 cup loosely packed basil leaves
Olive oil
1 tsp chilli powder
Salt to taste




Put the tomatoes in hot water for 2 minutes. Peel the skin. Chop into chunks.

Thinly slice the zucchini, eggplant and onion.

Wash the basil leaves.

Cook the pasta until soft, with salt. Drain and keep aside.

Heat a pan, coat it with olive oil. Add the onion.

When it starts to turn golden brown in colour, add the zucchini and eggplant. Cook until vegetables are soft.

Add the basil, chilli powder and salt.

Add the tomatoes and keep cooking until the mixture becomes saucy.

Add the pasta. Cook for a few minutes until the pasta and the sauce are combined.

That's it! You are done!

Back to my Victoria Sponge Cake

I started all over, but this time with buttercream icing for one half and chocolate fudge for the other. I'm happy, it turned out quite well. Clap! Clap! Clap!

I followed the buttercream icing from Rachel Allen's website -

75g butter, softened
125g icing sugar, sifted
½ tsp vanilla extract




Beat butter until soft, add icing sugar and vanilla.

I did a chocolate fudge on my own -

225g dark chocolate, cut into pieces
50g butter
50g icing sugar





Melt the butter and chocolate together in a double boiler and add the icing sugar. Bring to a boil. Spread the icing quickly on the cake.

Hi!
Welcome to my blog!
I’m absolutely passionate about two things – Fashion and food. I’m pursuing my former interest as a career, and the latter as a hobby. This blog is just an extension of the same!
I watched ‘Julie and Julia’ recently and I was truly inspired by the movie and instantly motivated to start my own blog. Though I’m a self-confessed foodie, I don’t have the kind of patience nor perseverance to try new recipes every day like the protagonist of the movie.
I love cooking and baking and I enjoy eating different cuisines (I stick to vegetarian- use eggs only for baking). Cooking and baking is such a pleasure, I wish a lot more men also get to experience this pleasure. After a bad day it’s a nice way to unwind and relax. On the optimistic side, after a good day too you can treat yourself with home made delicacies.

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.