Lemon Rice

Lemon rice!!
Once i was travelling on Dhanbad Allepy Express. This Train connects extreme of south India to east of Jharkhand and this journey takes more than 37 hrs on whole. We Indians often carry home made food for such a long journey. Sometimes its better to keep interacting with fellow travelers as it becomes easy to pass such long long hours. In the same coach a south Indian  family was travelling with me carrying a Tin packed with Lemon Rice for the whole journey. They were very friendly and during lunch hours they offered me a plate full of lemon rice. As a courtesy i accepted the food and to be honest it was mouth watering awesome dish.  Since then i fell in love with this simple and serene recipe.
In south India during Pongal they prepare this rice. Also in several other festivals i have received lemon rice and gram curry as prasadam.
Take a note of this recipe:

Ingredients

• Rice- 2 Cups (boiled)
• Curry Leaves/Mint Leaves/Coriander leaves- Finely Chopped
• Mustard seed- 1 Tea Spoon
• Roasted ground nuts- 1/4 Cup
• Whole gram/Chana Dal- 3 TSP (soaked in water for 1 hour)
• Lemon juice- 3 TSP
• Salt as per taste
• Green Chilly- 2
• Turmeric- 1 Tea Spoon
• Oil for cooking
• Onion- 1 Chopped

Method

• Heat 2 TSP of oil in a pan or skillet
• Add the mustard seeds
• Once they start crackling  add the gram and roast it. If u have Curry leaves ,at this point of time add some curry leaves. If you are adding curry leaves  then mint or coriander leaves are not require to be added further.
• Add the chilly and onion
• Fry until onion is soft
• Add the groundnuts ,salt and turmeric powder. Fry for 1 min
• Finally add the rice, Fry until every thing gets mixed up well.
• Add the Lime juice , Mix well.
• Turn off the heat and finally add Mint or coriander leaves to it. 

Serve Hot with Pickle or Yoghurt. Enjoy!!!!!!!!!!

Happy Cooking :-)

By: Sushmita Pandit

Pepper and garlic Paneer /Pepper and Garlic cottage cheese

Am kind of bored deep frying almost every chili preparation. So this time i decided to prepare something without deep frying .Moreover i wished that it mus taste equally as good as any Chinese chili item.

I have been reading many cook books and following many chefs. They always keep a check on the amount of fat that we use in the preparation of any recipie. Its always good to use fat as little as possible but then to give space to exception its okay to consume more than a little bit sometimes. For this paneer preparation i paid special attention to garlic and ginger because i wanted the flavours of Chinese chili items. Here's the recipe:

 Ingredients: 

• Paneer/Cottage Cheese- 250gms sliced into 1/2 inch cubes(how to make paneer-http://wahsushkitchen.blogspot.in/2012/09/paneercottage-cheese-how-to-prepare.html )
•  Bell pepper- 2 sliced into cubes
• Spring onions - 4 sticks chopped
• Green chilly - 2 sliced
• Pepper cons / Pepper powder- 1 Tea Spoon
• Ginger-1 TSP finely chopped
• Garlic- 4 large cloves , chopped
• Corn starch/ Corn flour- 1 TSP
• Oil- 3 TSP
• Tomato- 1 diced
• Onion-1 sliced
• Salt as per taste
• Tomato sauce
• Soy sauce

Method :

• Toss the paneer cubes over the corn flour powder and pinch of salt.
• Heat 2 TSP of oil in a pan, now toss the paneer until its  golden brown from all sides.
• Take out the cubes once they are golden brown.
• Now in the same pan add 1 more TSP of oil and add the chilly and onion
• Fry for 30 sec ,add garlic and ginger, fry until light soft
• Add bell peppers , fry for 1 min, and add tomatoes and salt.
• Fry for next 1 min and finally add the tossed paneer cubes
• At this point of time add all the sauces and fry for some more time
• Make a solution of cornflour by adding 1 tea spoon to 90ml of water.
• Add this solution and let it thicken.Turn off the heat
• Finally add freshly crushed pepper cons or pepper powder
• sprinkle the spring onions.

Pepper and Garlic Paneer is ready to be served. Serve it hot with Fresh steamed rice. 

Enjoy and Happy Cooking :-)

By: Sushmita Pandit

Paneer/Cottage Cheese-how to prepare from scratch

Am in Germany and am very bad in Deutsche but then i have not given up.Am trying to learn it as much as possible. Its a sea and am only trying take  few plunges down the water. Anyways Paneer what do they call it in Deutsche- googled and found Paneer- Paneer kaase but that was quite different from what we use, so Finally i have to learn the art of preparing paneer by myself. Previously i thought of it as tiresome difficult process but then its just a child play. So my search of paneer has finally settled with me preparing itself all the time. Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:

• Milk- 1 ltr
• lemon salt water/citric acid- 1.5 TSP or else lime juice- 2 TSP
• Large sieve
• Muslin cloth
• Cold water- 1 ltr
• Heavy weight

Method:

• Boil the milk
• As soon as it comes to boil add the lemon salt water and keep on stirring
• Once water separates turn off the heat
• Place the muslin cloth over the sieve and drain the milk over it
• Cheese will settle over the muslin cloth and water will drain off.
• Now pour the cold water so as to remove the sourness from it. squeeze to drain remaining water.
• Make a desired shape of the cheese say round or rectangular block and then tightly tie the muslin cloth squeezing out extra left water .
• Put a heavy weight over the tied cheese and keep it aside for 3 hours.

Paneer is now ready to use. Remove the cloth and you will get  soft spongy entact paneer block.

Have a happy cooking :-)

By: Sushmita Pandit

  

Paw Bhaji/Bread and vegetable curry

Paw Bhaji, Stomach full , tasty Dish,Easily available at any corner of Mumbai and on high Demand not only in INDIA but also in other countries like UK ,China ,Switzerland and the travel is On. One of the famous Dish that tops the chart on the menu of street food in India. I would recommend to try this at least once at Juhu Beach. Its a food that especially originated to assist people in saving the cooking time and also providing filling meal. Its too easy to prepare. Please do not drop your jaws Down if you do not have paw bhaji masala. Am going to share a very simple recipe For this Maharashtrian cuisine.

This recipie will serve 4
cooking time -20 min
Ingredients:

• Paw ladi or Bread Buns- 8
• Cheese of your choice.(optional)
• Butter-1/2 stick
• Potatoes- 4 medium size
• Cauliflower- 1 cup
• Carrots - 3 large 
• peas- 1/2 cup
• Cottage cheese/Paneer- 2/4 cup (optional)
• Green Chilli- 3 finely Chopped
• Ginger garlic paste- 2 tea spoon
• Tomatoes- 1/2 cup chopped/ pureed
• Onion- 1 sliced, 2 finely chopped
• lemon
• Coriander leaves- shredded
• Turmeric powder- 1 tea spoon
• Coriander powder -2 tea spoon
• Zeera powder/cumin powder-1 tea spoon
• Pepper powder- 1/2 tea spoon
• Salt as per taste
• Black Salt

Recipie:

• Boil peeled Potatoes, Cauliflower and carrots. Do not throw away the water, keep it for future use as a vegetable stock.
• In a pan heat the butter/oil .
• Add green chillies and chopped onions. saute for 30 sec
• Now add the ginger garlic paste and saute it for next 30 sec
• At this point add all the masalas and fry for 1 minute.
• Add tomatoes/puree and fry till tomato and oil separates
• At this point of time add all the boiled vegetables ,peas and paneer . mash them thoroughly.
• Add salt and 1 cup of vegetable stock
• Let the bhaji simmer until we get a thin paste like consistency.
• Turn off the heat.

For the Paw:

• one conventional way is to apply butter on both sides, slit the paw from the middle and toast it on the tawa on both sides.
• European Touch: Apply Parmesan Cheese on the paws and toast them on a toaster until light brown colour appears. Or
• Apply the cheese paste on the paws Or
• Can bake the paws with mozerrela cheese/Gouda Cheese until cheese melts Or
• INVENT A NEW STYLE OF toasting PAW AND PLEASE LET ME KNOW. :-)

For Serving :

• In a plate serve the bhaji, sprikle onion,coriander, jest of lemon and a little balck salt over it
• Serve the bread and garnish with sliced onion.

Paw Bhaji is ready to be served.Serve it Hot !!!!!!! Enjoy and Happy cooking :-)

By: Sushmita Pandit