Vegetable Stuffed Pooris

Times left-over food clicks some idea and the most frequent one is to make some stuffed pooris, paranthas, dosas, idly. Till date never tried stuffed pooris, so thought of making some to begin our Sunday. 

While you can plan any stuffing for pooris (most used is potato), the left over vegetable stuffing made for paneer is what I used to make these pooris :)

The ingredients and method below is same as that for preparing Vegetable Stuffed Paneer . You can tweak it by replacing vegetables with only potatoes or add more vegetables including fresh / frozen peas.

Ingredients:

• Cumin Seeds                   : 1/2 tspn
• Ginger Garlic Paste         : 1 tbspn
• Green Chillies                 :1-2 finely chopped (instead you can add more of red chili powder)
• Onion                              : 1 big finely chopped
• Capsicum                        : 1 small finely chopped
• Potato                              : 1 medium boiled and mashed
• Butter / oil                       : 1 tbspn
• Turmeric Powder             : 1 tspn
• Red Chili Powder            : 1/2 - 1 tspn
• Salt                                  :  To taste
• Cashew                            : 4 finely chopped and fried
• Garam / Curry Masala     : 1 tbspn
• Coriander Leaves

Method:

To make the vegetable stuffing:

1. In a kadai, add butter / oil. As it heats up, add jeera and allow it to splutter.
2. Add ginger garlic paste and saute till it cooks
3. Add green chili and saute it for a second
4. Add onion and saute till they turn pink (translucent)
5. Add capsicum and saute
6. As they cook, add turmeric powder, chili powder, garam masala and salt 
7. Then add mashed potato and coriander leaves
8. To this mix, add the fried cashew nuts and remove from fire

To make the dough for pooris:

1. In a mixer, blend the vegetable mix to ensure there are no lumps such as fried cashews 
2. In a vessel, take enough wheat flour and add this mix. 
3. Knead well using warm water and a spoon of oil / ghee

To make the  pooris:

1. In a kadai, pour enough oil to deep fry the pooris. Allow it to heat 
2. Prepare small round pooris (size per your preference) and deep fry. 

To serve as a side dish / gravy : Tomato Mutter Gravy: 

Ingredients:

• Onion                  :1 medium finely chopped
• Tomato                : 1 medium finely chopped
• Garlic                  : 4 pods chopped
• Ginger                 : 1/2 inch chopped
• Green Chilli         : 2 finely chopped
• Peas / Mutter        : 1 cup (soaked in warm water)
• Coriander Powder: 1 tbspn
• Turmeric Powder :   1/2 tspn
• Red Chili Powder:  1/2 - 1 tbspn (as spicy as you need)
• Salt                       : To taste
• Coriander Leaves
• Kasoori Methi (dried feengreek leaves)

Method:

1. In a kadai, add 1 tbspn oil. As it heats up, add a spoon of jeera. As it splutters, add ginger, garlic, onion and saute them till golden
2. Add the peas followed by tomatoes and saute it for 2 mts
3. To this add all spices and salt as per taste
4. Add some water and cook it covered (If you want it tangy, you can add a tbspn of curd)
5. Garnish with fresh coriander leaves and kasoori methi

Goes well with hot pooris, rotis, paranthas, dosas and idlis.

Veg Stuffed Paneer / Cottage Cheese

Paneer (Cottage Cheese) is so flexi that you can make variety of dishes using it. Wanted to try my hand in making some stuffed paneer... after a quick look around (thanks to 'n' number of cookery blogs, sites, videos), I zeroed in on making a Vegetable Stuffed Paneer starter dish.

Ingredients:

• Cottage Cheese / Paneer : 150-200 gms 
• Cumin Seeds                   : 1/2 tspn
• Ginger Garlic Paste         : 1 tbspn
• Green Chillies                 :1-2 finely chopped (instead you can add more of red chili powder)
• Onion                              : 1 big finely chopped
• Capsicum                        : 1 small finely chopped
• Potato                              : 1 medium boiled and mashed
• Butter / oil                       : 1 tbspn
• Turmeric Powder             : 1 tspn
• Red Chili Powder            : 1/2 - 1 tspn
• Salt                                  :  To taste
• Cashew                            : 4 finely chopped and fried
• Garam / Curry Masala     : 1 tbspn
• Coriander Leaves
• Corn Flour                       : 2 tbspn
• Breadcrumbs                    : to coat
• Oil                                     : to shallow fry

Method:

1. Cut the cottage cheese into thin block of squares (like Cheese Sheet). Sprinkle each sheet with some salt and pepper, and allow it to marinate 
2. In a kadai, add butter / oil. As it heats up, add jeera and allow it to splutter.
3. Add ginger garlic paste and saute till it cooks
4. Add green chili and saute it for a second
5. Add onion and saute till they turn pink (translucent)
6. Add capsicum and saute
7. As they cook, add turmeric powder, chili powder, garam masala and salt 
8. Then add mashed potato and coriander leaves
9. To this mix, add the fried cashew nuts and remove from fire
10. Make a mix of corn flour with water. Have a plate with breadcrumbs to coat
11. Now, take one sheet of paneer and place the vegetable stuff prepared and cover it with another sheet. 
12. Cut this bigger sandwiched cheese sheets into triangles or halves
13. Dip each square / triangle into corn mix followed by breadcrumbs. Repeat this process twice to give a thicker coat
14. Shallow Fry each piece and serve hot with green chutney, or any other preferred sauce

You can use your choice of vegetables for this stuffing including carrot, beans, etc.

Salt and Spicy Sankarapara

Everything in life can become mundane unless we break the monotony and bring in some change. It's upto us what we make of our life, including every facet of our life.

Same is true for cooking... While the ingredients may seem finite (not really though!), it's us who can give the same ingredients a different form and taste. These thoughts have been lingering on and whenever it bangs me real hard, I end up trying something that I haven't till then.

This week end was a mini foodie week end! I cooked different stuff across breakfast, lunch, tea and dinner time.

It began with preparing a tea-time snack, salt and spicy "Sankarapara", which is like a mattri. This goes well with a hot cup of tea / coffee.

Ingredients:

• All purpose flour(maida)  : 1/2 cup 
• Semolina (Rava)                 : 1 tbspn
• Rice flour                             : 1/4 cup
• Chili Powder                       : 3/4 tspn
• Salt                                        : To taste
• Sugar                                    : 1/2 - 3/4 tspn 
• Ghee                                     : 2 tbspn (hot)
• Water                                   : To knead
• Oil                                         : To fry

Method:

1. In a bowl, mix maida, rice flour, rava, chili powder, salt, sugar. To this, add hot ghee and mix well.
2. Using needed water, knead the dough (consistency like that for roti / puris)
3. Leave it covered for 30 mts with a moist cloth
4. Roll it into thin discs, like rotis, and cut them into shapes needed (diamond in this case)
5. In a kadai, add oil and heat it. Deep fry the cut pieces till they turn brown (Take care not to deep fry them, like it happened to me for a few pieces)
6. Place it in a tissue to remove excess oil. As they cool down, store them in an air-tight container

Note:

• Use of hot ghee is to give them the crispiness
• You can replace all purpose flour with Wheat flour 
• You can make it a sweet snack by only adding sugar or jaggery

Hand-Pound Garam Masala

Times we end up buying some groceries which may not be put to use much! In my case, some raw garam masala ingredients been lying around for a while now! 

Finally, to ensure it doesn't end in a dustbin, I decided to pound them all together and make home-made garam masala powder. And how did I achieve this?!? After real long time, I made use of the ammi kal, grandma's erstwhile mixer :) Wow, what an aroma while we grind and yes not to forget the exercise for your hands!!!

Ingredients:

Black pepper corns
Cloves
Nutmeg
Cinnamon
Green Cardomom
Cumin
Saunf
Bay leaf

Palak Paneer

Palak Paneer is a staple Punjabi dish, given the area's richness in greens especially palak and saag; and paneer / cottage cheese is a given :)

It's a very simple, subtle, rich and delicious preparation that will go well with hot rotis, paranthas, bread or some even relish it with rice. 

Ingredients:

• Palak / Spinach                 : 1 small bundle
• Paneer / Cottage Cheese :  150 gm (1 cup of cubed paneer; dice it to the size you prefer)
• Green Chilies                     : 4-5 (as spicy as you prefer)
• Garlic                                   : 2-4 pods
• Ginger                                 : 1" piece
• Big Onion                           : 2 medium
• Tomatoes                           : 1  small [optional]
• Kasuri methi                     : to flavor
• Jeera / Cumin                   : 1/2 tsp (raw or powder, optional)
• Lemon Juice                      : 1 tspn  
• Garam Masala                   : 1/2 tspn
• Salt                                       : To Taste
• Butter                                  : 1 tbspn 
• Fresh Cream                      : 1 -2 tbspn

Method:

1. Clean the spinach well to remove soil (use running water) 
2. In a kadai add some water and salt. As it starts to boil, add spinach to blanch it for 2 mts
3. Strain it and immediately place in a bowl of chilled water for 1-2 mts (to retain the green color)
4. Allow it to cool and drain the water
5. Make a puree of the spinach with green chilies and set aside
6. In another mixer, make a paste of ginger, garlic, one onion and tomatoes (alternatively you can cut them into fine pieces and saute directly)
7. In a kadai, add a tablespoon of oil. To this add saboot jeera, one diced onion and saute it. As onion turns golden, add the ginger + garlic + onion + tomatoes paste and allow it to cook till the oil starts oozing out (till the raw flavor disappears)
8. Add the garam masala powder and salt
9. To this, add the spinach puree. Stir and cook for 2 mts over small-medium flame
10. To this, add some water and allow it to cook for a few more minutes with occasional stirring over small-medium flame  (till the raw flavor of the spinach disappears)
11. To this, add the cubed paneer (some prefer it raw while some saute it to golden colorbefore adding)
12. Allow the mixture to cook for 2 mts  (should be semi-gravy and not dried. so add water if needed while cooking)
13. Finally, add kasoori methi and lemon juice. Stir it and remove from fire.
14. Top it up with fresh cream and serve hot with rotis / naan / bread 

For this dish, we avoid turmeric, coriander and red chilly powder. 

It's an easy-to-cook dish as compared to many other... so, just go for it!

As a complimentary dish, you can make some Herbal Paneer: 

• Sprinkle some turmeric powder, red chillie powder, salt, dried herbs and mix well. 
• Shallow fry them to golden brown and have it hot!