Paneer with Posto (Poppy paste) and Capsicum

Had this delicious paneer dish at a cousin's place. Loved it.
She mentioned some ingredients she'd used, I guessed some she may have missed....the result was quite a refreshing tasting Paneer!

Ingredients:

Paneer – 500gm

Tej pata-2

Tomato chopped-1

Ginger paste -1 tbsp

Whole jeera

Whole Garam Masala

paste of 2 medium sized capsicum

paste of 2 tbsp posto

Dhone-jeera powder – ½ tsp each

Salt

Sugar

Green chili

Ghee at the end

Procedure:

1. Season the oil with Tej pata, Whole jeera, Whole garam masala, ginger paste/grated 

2. Add the tomato followed by Capsicum paste and let it cook till the oil separates.

3. Add the Posto/Poppy Paste followed by sugar, dhone - jeere paste.

4. Add the Paneer cubes and salt to taste 

5. Add some water...not too much...just a sprinkling

6. Cover and cook for a couple of minutes.

7. End it off with adding some slit green chilies and a liberal spoonful of ghee.

8. Eat it with steamed rice or roti.

PS: I'd added some diced potatoes which I'd sauted prior to adding to the gravy. Potato is totally optional....I added because I like potatoes with paneer 😉

Saucy Fish?!

No....there's nothing 'Saucy' or cheeky about this fish preparation....the name suggests Sauces as the main ingredients....that's all! A super quick 15 minutes (if you dont consider the marination time) recipe from start to finish....

Ingredients :
Bhetki Fish fillets : about 8-10 leftover irregular pieces after preparing the fillets for making fish fries...

Chopped Onions
Finely chopped capsicum - 1/2
Finely chopped coriander leaves/Dhonepaata - for garnishing
Sugar - 1 tsp

For marination :

Worcestershire sauce - drizzle to coat all the pieces
Soya Sauce - about 1.5 tbsp
Chili Vinegar - 2 tbsp
Chili flakes - 1 tbsp
Ginger paste - 1 tsp
Garlic paste - 1tsp

Salt
Pepper

Olive Oil - 1 tsp

Procedure :
1.Add all ingredients under 'Marination' and coat all the fish pieces well and marinate, preferably, for an hour..

2. Transfer the marinated fish along along any juice into a microwaveable container, preferably with a cover/lid. Microwave in Low power (whatever is the minimum power) for 8-10 minutes. Check the "done-ness" after 5-7 minutes and decide. Keep it covered after switching off the power. Make sure it's not overdone....fish becomes fibrous....
3. In the meantime dry roast the chopped capsicum on a hot tawa on high for a minute or so ...to give a smoky taste
4. Caramelise finely chopped onions by adding a little bit of sugar while frying the onions in a little oil.
5. Garnish the microwaved fish with caramelised onions, dry roasted capsicum & finely chopped coriander leaves.

Serve hot with steamed rice, butter rice, bread or just some potato wedges and salad.

Tangy Herbalicious Prawns!!!

An impromptu recipe which I hope I can remember correctly! But actually there isnt much to remember in this recipe of Prawns except the fact that I dunked in a lot of fresh herbs into it and the final product reflected the freshness of herbs blended beautifully with the buttery fresh prawns with minimum spices....

Ingredients :

750gms cleaned shelled de-veined  prawns.

1 bowl full of chopped coriander and some (for garnishing)

1 bowl full of curry leaves

1 mmedium sized capsicum chopped
8-10 garlic cloves

1 diced onion & 1 finely  chopped onion
1 chopped tomato

freshly crushed peppercorns

chilli flakes

juice of 3 lemons

rock salt

a pinch of sugar
chopped green chillies & whole green chilies

potatoes cut as in french fries. 

white sesame seeds - 2-3 tbsp

rice flour (optional) - 2-3 tbsp
Oil
Tej Pata -1 

Procedure
Prawns :
1. Marinate the prawns in lemon juice, rock salt, crush pepper for 1/2 hr - 1 hour.
2. Lightly saute the prawns. Keep aside.
3. In a kadai / wok, heat oil and throw in a Tej Pata, a tsp of crushed pepper corns and finely sliced garlic cloves. Also add the diced onions & chopped onions and a pinch of sugar for caramelizing . Fry till the onions turn translucent.
4. Add the chopped capsicum and fry on medum to high heat.
5. Now add the 2 bowls of fresh herbs - curry leaves and  coriander leaves. Stir them around. The aroma of fresh herbs is mindblowing!!!!
6. Add the chopped tomato and stir it around on high heat.
7. Add rocksalt.
8. Now add the sauted prawns and add salt, pepper and chili flakes as per your taste.
9. Stir briskly on high heat till prawn is done but ensure it's not overcooked. Squeeze a lemon, mix it around and garnish with the leftover chopped coriander.

French Fries with a crunchy twist:
1. While frying and stirring the herby prawns, marinate the sliced potatos lemon juice, salt, chili flakes and (slightly moistened) rice flour and abot 1-1.5 tbsp white sesame seeds (Til) .
2. In a frying pan/wok, heat oil and fry the potatoes on medium to high heat.When it's almost done, sprinkle some more white sesame seeds on the almost-done-potatoes. To minimise oil consumption, while frying potatoes, the potato slices may be blanched followed by being chilled in freezer.

Serve the herbilicious prawns with rice and garnish with the crunchy crispy french fry kind of potato fries!!

Chicken garnished with Sesame-seed-speckled Capsicum

Surprise in the fridge!
The weekend was near and the fridge almost empty. And I had resigned myself to a dinner of dal, cabbage and rice. Even the stock of eggs was dwindling to one....quite a sad affair indeed! (Yes! I am a shamelessly unrepentant carnivore!!)
Just as I was about to close the freezer door shut after having opened it out of sheer habit, saw a little flash of red lid peeping from behind the big packets of frozen peas and sweet kernels. The mood perked up and a quick shuffle and it was a red lidded box of marinated chicken breasts which I had completely forgotten about. I had marinated the meat in my perennial marination of lemon-salt-pepper-ginger-garlic and there it was sitting pretty in the freezer waiting to be discovered!

Ingredients

Chicken breasts - 500 gms
Lemon juice of 1 large or 2 small lemons
Ginger-garlic paste - 1tbsp
Bay leaf - 1
Sliced Garlic cloves - 4-5 cloves
salt
pepper
diced onions -1
diced capsicum
Worcestershire  sauce - 1.5-2 tbspn
White sesame seed (added as an afterthought!)
Potatoes diced - 1 large (optional...I'd added to add volume)
Olive Oil - 2 tbsp

Procedure

1. Marinate the chicken breasts in lemon juice + salt + pepper + ginger-garlic paste for a couple of hours. Though I had marinated or rather marinated and forgotten about it for more than 3 days.;)
2. Heat  oil in a wok. Temper with the Bay leaf.
3. Add the potatoes.
4. Add the diced onions and sprinkle some sugar on it for colour. Fry on high heat and keep stirring
5. Throw in the chopped garlic.keep stirring
6. Add the marinated chicken after cutting them into small pieces. Cook on high heat.Since it was in the marination for so long, the meat is very tender and takes very less time to cook.
7. Add some pepper powder, followed by Worcestershire  sauce. Toss around and keep stir frying.

8. Just as I was about to add the diced capsicum, an idead struck and I took out my tawa, put it on flame, threw the capsicum and tossed them around to dry roast. As a final touch of brainwave, threw in a tablespoon or two of white sesame seeds into the tawa and roasted till they were crisp and pale golden.

9. Now garnish the chicken with the dry roasted capsicum and white sesame seeds.

10. Finally throw in some green chilies and garnish with coriander leaves.