Left Over Series Finale!!

Since you guys have loved my leftover series so much, I reckoned a few more tricks and tips is something I owe you lovely people. If you have any more left over cakes, and parfait don’t interest you; then read up to get to know of other wonderful stuff that you can do with it.

Now these tricks and tips I picked up, but didn’t try all of them, as of yet. If you ever try it out, let me know! But I am sure, all of it will work well and would give you guys a very satisfying dessert to enjoy after a hearty meal, or a snack to be had between meals.

First in my list is an Ice Cream Sundae. Now you can get really creative here. And make different flavours with it. The steps are simple, and the best part being all of it has to be done the day before. So it’s the perfect party dessert.

Take a litre of vanilla ice cream and let it melt a bit to the semi solid level.

Now whisk it well, while adding stuff like chocolate chips, almond flakes, raisins, dried cranberries etc.

Take a handful of crumbled cake and incorporate well with a spatula, making certain that the cake don’t powder off in the ice cream. Some gentle firm stokes is all that’s required.

Freeze it overnight and enjoy a perfect frozen dessert. No one can ever tell that it’s a store bought ice cream. And instead the guests would swoon in absolute joy.

The next in line is a Toasted Jam Cake-wich.

Google Images

Take 2 thin slices of stale cake loaf, like plum cakes or rum cakes from the festive season.

Toast it lightly in a buttered pan, and generously spread over a tart fruit preserve like diabetic jam or a really good bitter orange marmalade. The sweet bread with not so sweet jam is so enticing and confusing to the palette that it would be one of the greatest hits in a high tea party. Do chop the Cake-wich to smaller pieces so that it’s easy to hold and eat.

And as for the last, yet one of the best things to do with stale cakes; is to make a Bread-no-Cake Pudding with it.

Cut little cubes of the cake and set it aside.

In a separate bowl, whisk 1 egg to half a cup of milk, mix vanilla and a tbsp. of oil to get a sugar free custard made. I soak the cake in the custard for at least an hour or more, and then top it with additional flavours like that of half a tsp of cocoa followed with a handful of chocolate chips. A brief whisk later, I let it all go into a preheated oven to cook off.

Now this is a basic custard recipe that I have given measurements on. Adjust it to suit the amount of cake you intend to bake in the custard. After pouring, the custard should be visible to you, which will be soaked up in the hour you let it soak for. A rum cake might not soak so much, but a simple sponge will soak up all liquid.   

Keep an eye on it while it’s in the oven. If the top is browning too much, cover it with a foil. The test of doneness remains the same as a cake. A toothpick if comes out clean, then the pudding is done.

This dessert is very versatile. You can serve it hot or warm with a scoop of ice cream or whipped cream. And it can also be served cold to enjoy just like so.

Armed with so many left over inspired dishes, I am sure you will never ever have a problem stale cakes again!! Cheers!! 

Pre Diwali Party!!!

Are you looking for that perfect snack for your Pre-Diwali Cocktail Party? Perhaps, the full meal? Depending on how many guests you are hosting, keeping it simple and fresh is the only suggestion I can give you. Below, I mention all my favourites, the recipes I have developed for you over the years, which is so perfect and so simple to put together. Some have great drama involved too, which might be a wonderful party activity to involve your guests in it. So here goes the list of all my favourites-

Appetizers

Perfected Chicken 'Booby' Kababs on a Stove Flame!!! 

Sometimes I like to burn things in my kitchen. Yes, and deliciously so… this is a wonderful activity to involve your guests in as well. Fun and frolic in the kitchen, with cool drinks flowing in; heaven, don't u think? Same recipe could be used for prawns or baby-corn, and can be barbecued as well on an open terrace. Be creative and plan your party with your individual tastes.

Recipe

The Crispy Masala Carp!

I like to include a star dish in every course surrounded with easy to put snack or side dishes. For appetizers, this is my star dish, which I surround with various dips and chutneys and serve it along with pop corn, chips and a finger salad. Perfect start to a great party.

Recipe

Atta-Go Cheese Bites!!!

Another of my dish that can be prepared earlier and served cold or luke warm to the guests. It’s a carb filled appetizer, which will fill your guests enough to let u linger on the party till late.

Recipe

Masala Nuts on a Plate! 

This is definitely my favourite thing to serve, and for my guests to munch on. Trust me, the tag home-made adds a beautiful twist to it as well.

Video Recipe

Mains

The Art of Layers: Lasagne 

For the time when you feel party should be all about indulgent gourmet food, which is rather easy to put together, but is a wow dish altogether.

Recipe

Summery Delight – Pesto Pasta and Preserved Lemon Salad 

When keeping it gormet, and yet healthy is what you desire. This simple spread would be perfect for it.

Recipe

Weekday Dinner with Paneer Gravy-ed and Sumac-ed Cous-cous!! 

What if you desire a fusion vegetarian spread for your guests? This particular recipe is a desi-videsi mix of balance, and pretty healthy at it too.

Recipe

The Biryani Express!! 

I always love dishes that can be prepped earlier for me to get time to mingle with my guests during a party at home. And this is one of my favourite things to do, one pot dish but yet so light and festive. I keep everything half cooked and layered, but finish off just before serving. This recipe is best if steamed in a proper steamer, but the pressure cooker method works wonders too.

Recipe- Murgh Dum Biryani

              Pudina Subz Biryani

Desserts

Labourious Love: Fresh Strawberry and Orange Ice-cream 

Diwali this year seems really hot for many places in the country. And hence an easy semi freddo styled ice cream would be a great option. Opt for packaged strawberry crush instead of fresh strawberries or flavour with other fruits! Give it your twist, but follow the recipe and technique to the T. No need for an ice cream machine in your kitchen, I guarantee!

Recipe

Nutella Mugsy!!! 

Oh what an indulgent little thing, and it can be adapted in many ways as well. Make it hot, right before serving and offer a dollop of cold vanilla ice cream along! Heaven in each bite!!

Recipe

My Rustic self: Baked Apples!! 

And if you are hosting a healthy fresh spread this Diwali, the dessert too has to sing out a fitting reply. These rustic little bites of soft fresh cooked apples would be perfect for the occasion.

Recipe

Vanilla-Milk Jelly with Chocolat-Shaves 

But if you wanna keep it indulgent healthy, like I always do (lord Buddha’s Middle path) then these little wiggly guys are gonna be your friends for life. They are indulgent and luscious, while remaining very healthy indeed.

Recipe

All that Jazz and Spirit!!

Those were the days when you would go to an uncle’s house and have uncle chips and cold drinks while the adults chill with a cup of tea. Parties meant something easy, an easy not bothered atmosphere was created without much of a problem. The ladies were busy in kitchen, men in the drawing room and kids chilling in the bedroom watching TV, looking at western parties with flowing bars and awesome music. Cut to this generation, and we have successfully got all of those enactments to life, in an Indian setting. Today every house I get invited to has an impressive bar, and alcohol flows freely and heartily. After all, in this day and age, alcohol is the spirit of a rolling party.

When

Lord Ganesha's Prashad!!

We all love a perfect bite of cake, don’t we? But we are never adventurous enough to try and offer it to our darling Hindu gods, during their days with us in our house. We are about to celebrate a 11 day long festival to mark the presence our most lovable elephant god, Lord Ganesha! Let’s entertain him this season with a good dose of lovely soft and healthful cakes, which I am sure his sweet tooth is going to devour heartily.

#BeautifulFood

A year long journey of good food and Borosil.

Now hands up from all who have and adore their borosil vessels… I am sure there are thousands of hands up now. It’s not a company that was born yesterday. We all have thoroughly loved using their beakers in the chemistry labs, and its cookware’s in our kitchen labs! Today, as the last part of this participation in #BeautifulFood contest with MyBorosil.com and Indiblogger.in, I present to you a journey of my sprouting love with the ever glamourous borosil. Every picture below is close to my heart, clicked in vessels that I possess through half a decade long collection time. 

My beautiful food-story!

Mumbai is finally raining! Ahh… Such relief from the hot and humid. It’s cool now, and I have a view of green covered mountains from my window ledge. I just want to sit on it with a steaming transparent cup of white leaf tea, the perfect brew- which shines golden in the cloudy sun outside; and remember that beautiful time when we were together! The perfect candlelight dinner I made for u to surprise you. You craved for that cheesy lasagne for long. I delivered it with just the perfect amount of naughtiness in the form of 2 well rounded cheeses- cheddar and parmiggiano. Perfect amount of tang in the form of the ruby red tomato-meat sauce that I made from the scratch. And not to forget, was the sweetness of grilled veggies that I lined on to add a twist of nutrition just for you! It was layered perfectly, but would have looked much better in a borosil lasagne dish, but I didn’t think of it then!

I was busy kneading back then rather to think of presenting my food. You remember, I also made the fluffy and dented, olive focaccia. Ah the romance of the yeast rising, the aroma of the fresh olive oil, the madness of the all-purpose flour. How wonderful would it have looked in a transparent vessel, I wonder now. The little pockets of air, which transformed the flour into a pillow, all visible from the sides. And the best would have been the fact that it would be perfect to put in the oven, and get it to the table too. If only that day I had realised! With you inside me, the comfort of such bake and serve would have been the greatest!

And for the sweet dish, ah, my homemade Peanutella Mugsy with a dollop of cool ice cream on top. I made peanutella, rather than exposing you to store bought nutella. Noise of the blender excited you, but smoothness of the sauce calmed you. And when I made the flourless cake after the very carb enriched dinner, you were beyond yourself in joy! I could feel your excitement when you saw the mugsy batter rising in the microwave to the brim of the pretty dessert cups. Your kicks of joy sent flutters down my spine. Yeah not one of the super nutritious meals, but definitely one of the most celebratory one! The hot, out of microwave cake, combined with cool, out of freezer ice cream; heaven in a bite!

You loved it then, and today, when you have developed your own little 1 year old taste buds, your mom is curious. Yes, the candlelight dinner that we had was when you were literally a part of me, 7 month old inside me. But today you are out. And you have distinctive likes and dislikes. Hopefully your mom’s food will always be a part of the former, and not the latter.

Today I am trying to do something I have never done before. I am trying to unleash the storyteller in me; on to you but without pictures! This is my entry post to #BeautifulFood hosted by MyBorosil.com and Indiblogger.in.

Cheers!!

The Crispy Masala Carp!

You know you have a winner recipe for fish when a non fish loving bong suddenly takes fancy of your cooked fish, and eats three straight pieces of it! Her mom, almost teary-eyed on the call, wanted the recipe ASAP! And why wouldn’t she like it, I baked a well flavoured fish to perfect crisp, with minimal oil and served it with a raita (curd mixed with spices) and home-made chutney.

The fish in question is a mildly flavoured, white flesh of Rohu/ Rui/ Indian Carp. A very healthy protein but a tad bit less tasty than its colleagues from the sea. And that’s why, children never really like it so much. A bong kid like yours truly, has grown up eating this humble protein almost 265 days out of a year’s 365 days. We lose to see the charm of this modest species of fish, and it tends to get to the boring stage pretty easily. A bong mom has a lot of ways up her sleeve to make a kid enjoy this modest bite, and I added another one, one that’s easy to make, non fussy and very healthy!

This dish has another story too, a story that revolves around the coming rains. The Romance of Rains in Mumbai is a huge craze. And why won’t it be. The hot humid summer that we are going through is killing in every aspect! Can’t wait for that first drop of water on my forehead, for the cool sea breeze to fill my house and for me to sit by the window, enjoying this with an awesome glass of cool red wine!

Eggless Masala Cake for the Perfect Tea Time!!

Tea is a huge affair at my abode! My Father-in-law is a self confessed tea connoisseur, and when he visits, every day we brew at least 4 different types of tea at various hours during the full day! It’s fun for me as he actually does the heating boiling and brewing on his own. No disturbance for the daughter in law, who just gets a perfectly brewed steaming cuppa in her hands without moving an inch!

This time, we tried a Kangra Valley green tea and Radhika’s white leaf tea. The brew received mixed reactions but this cake that we served along with the tea got thumbs up from all, even from the little 1 year old food critic I am raising. This is possibly the first ever all Indian cake you would have seen, made using ingredients found in Indian kitchens all over.

A cake is a difficult thing to develop a recipe for. The measurements are key; they say! But for me, more than the measurements, it’s the texture which stands key. You should always believe your intuitions when trying a new recipe for a cake. The key words to look for and understand are things like- ‘spoon dropping consistency,’  ‘hard peaks’, ‘soft peaks’ etc. If you need a teaspoon more water to get to the spoon dropping consistency, do so! If you need to whip a minute longer to get to the hard peaks, do so! These parameters are important and these are not to be missed.

 A little tip that I have used extensively to make egg free cakes, is the inclusion of sugar in dry ingredient, rather than it being a part of the wet brigade. What this does is it gives the cake little pockets of fluff while baking. Once the sugar dissolves, the hot air somehow creates a very soft and fluffy cake!

 The combination of hot water with vinegar reacts to create moistness in the cake. It’s a well thought out recipe that isn’t oily, nor does it use ingredients like cream and condensed milk. It’s a simple, ready to mix in 5 minutes kind of a cake, which will lead up to satisfied family members surely! The egg is a difficult thing to replace, but this recipe takes into account lots of experience to create the perfect eggless cake, which an egg loving person would like and make repeatedly!

Another interesting and an essentially Indian aspect of this cake is the topping-cum-filling.  I have used enough masala to entice the taste buds properly. It’s not a very sweet cake, but in case you want to up the sugar content further, just add another ¼ cup.

Ingredients:

1 ¾ cups All-Purpose Flour ( ¼ cups less than 2 full cups)
¾ cups Sugar
1 ½ tsp Eno Fruit Salts
½ tsp Salt
1 cup Hot Water
1 tbsp Vinegar

½ tbsp Vanilla Extract
¼ cup Oil

For the all interesting topping and filling:

1 tbsp softened Butter
2 tbsp Brown Sugar

1/3 cup Walnuts and Cashew nuts chopped

¼ tsp cinnamon powder

¼ tsp cardamom powder

¼ tsp red chilli powder

Method:

The first and foremost thing to do would be to pre-heat the oven to 180 degree C, so that it stays nice and hot by the time we finish mixing the batter. 

Now, in a shallow dish, combine butter, brown sugar, nuts and the different Masalas together. With a fork mix till it is crumbly. Mix a couple of tbsp of APF (from the cake batter) to this mix and set it aside for later.

For the cake- mix all the dry ingredients – flour, sugar, salt and Eno.

In a separate bowl, combine the wet ingredients – hot water, vinegar, vanilla extract and oil; and whisk well.

Mix the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and combine. Incorporate together well. I have noticed that sometimes I do need to add a bit more water to the batter, till it reaches a spoon dropping consistency. Add cautiously, a tbsp at a time!

In a silicon mould, or a well oiled aluminium pan, pour half the prepared batter. Sprinkle on half the filling mixture evenly. Add the other half of the batter and sprinkle the remaining of the topping/filling mixture.

Put it to bake for 40-45 minutes, till a dry toothpick comes out clean. Cool, slice and enjoy with a hot cuppa!

Healthy Start with Raagi-aata Bread!!

Baking is an addiction! And very recently one of my readers got hooked on to baking breads. The romance of the yeast rising, the softness of a well kneaded dough, the red hot oven; and the hard/crispy outsides, yet fluffy moist insides of perfectly baked bread! Tell me if the last line didn’t excite you enough already!! This is called bread-o-graphy in my opinion, and its an addiction that will take everyone off, by a sweep!

Baking a perfect loaf is very rewarding and fills you up with pride! If you want to start eating healthy, steer clear of the bakery breads claiming to be wholegrain. They pump the bread with synthetic gluten to strengthen the slices and increase their shelf life. If you have accepted to eat healthy, then try making your own bread the way I do it. I make a huge batch at a go, then freeze one portion after the first rising, and bake one portion after 2 risings. When the other needs to be made, simply take it out of the freezer, to room temperature for 2 hours; the bread would have risen exactly as the first loaf. The only thing remaining before you could enjoy a fresh warm loaf of bread, is baking it!  

Alternatively, you could also bake the whole of the dough, and then freeze slices of the baked bread. Even after a week of baking it, take it out from the freezer and straight to a hot tawa (pan) to roast and it will taste exactly like fresh toast!

But baking fresh bread will not allow you to use your toasters the way you would with a bakery brought bread. The synthetic gluten strengthens the bread enough to let the slice remain non-crumbly, something your fresh bread would not if you ever attempt at vertically toasting it. As a great tip, someone once told me to put the toaster horizontal and toast the bread likewise! Maybe that could work...

Ingredients:

1 and ¼ cup all purpose flour (APF)

1 cup Ragi Flour (Finger millet)

¾ cup whole-wheat flour

1 and ¼ cup milk (lukewarm)

1 tsp salt

2 tbsp butter/oil/ghee

1 tbsp instant dry yeast

1 tbsp sugar

3 tbsp warm water

Method:

In a bowl dissolve yeast in lukewarm water, taking care that the water is not too hot or else it can kill yeast, not too cool as it will not excite the yeast as much. Add sugar to the yeast mixture and set it aside to proof in a draft free place.

In a mixing bowl mix all three flours and salt well. Now add the bubbled yeast mixture, along with 1 tbsp oil/butter/ghee and mix with warm milk to form soft sticky dough.

Knead the dough well with the reserved 1 tbsp of oil. If the dough looks nice a smooth and springs back up on indenting it, the dough is well kneaded. Let the dough rise in a warm draft free place for an hour to 90 minutes, till it doubles its size.

Once it doubles, knock out the air and put it in the loaf tin to rise once again, this time in the shape of a loaf. Oil the tin well before putting in the dough. Let it rise for another 30-40 minutes, till it domes up twice the size.

Brush the top of the loaf with some milk or honey and scatter on some rolled oats and flax seed (optional).

Bake the loaf in oven on to 200 degreeC for 35-40 minutes; keep checking it with a skewer after 35 minutes mark to ensure perfect cooking. The best way to tell the bread is ready when a tap sounds hollow from inside. Cool on a wire rack for an hour, before slicing with a serrated knife!

Viola, the magic happened! Beautiful fresh bread is made, to be had with a thick layer of nutella on top. The guilt kind of lessens, for the yummy sugar in nutella, u have added a good dose of ragi fibres in the dish. Balance is a beautiful thing of life! Cheers!!

Oye Brinner with Sweet Potato Hash and Nestled Eggs!

Brinner- I love this concept! Pancakes and maple syrup is awesome at any time of the day and so is my recipe for fried egg and chunky hash. And throw in a fresh loaf of homemade bread, and it’s a meal made in heaven. Pair it with a glass of white chilled wine; and that would be a brinner to not forget.

Let me give you some reasons as to why I love brinner so much. Now, in the morning to get up and make hash is really painful. It takes a lot of time to prepare. So that’s never an easy fix when you want express breakfast, as you actually have been fasting for that long. For a brunch though it seems ideal. Plus a glass of wine that goes so well with this dish; is not an ideal breakfast drink. And a fresh loaf of bread is so difficult in the mornings. Can we even imagine baking fresh bread that early, for domestic eating! It’s an out of the world thought. So, the classic breakfast to be had on dinner time is such a wonderful idea to me.

Ingredients:

2-3 big sweet potatoes cut in small chunks

2 potatoes cut in small chunks

Dried thyme

Dried oregano

Salt

Pepper

Oil/butter

Red pepper flakes

Fresh Garlic crushed

1 big Onion chopped

4 eggs

To serve along with fresh loaf of bread and some tomato based marinara sauce or any other gravy.

Method:

In a skillet, heat some oil/butter with crushed garlic and pepper flakes. Till it reaches the desired temperature, get the 2 potatoes in a microwave-safe bowl, add some salt and a 1 inch of water; and microwave on high for 2 minutes. Give it a stir and microwave for a minute again.

After the garlic is lightly browned, add the onions and fry till golden.

Add dried herbs and fry for a few seconds. An important tip, always crush the dried herbs between your palms before adding it to your dish. This releases the flavour and helps the herbs break down!

Now tip in the cooked soft potatoes and on a high flame, get a bit of colour on them. Let them sit prettily on the hot skillet for at least 2 minutes before turning them. That way you will get that beautiful crisp and caramelised side.

Once the potatoes are cooked to your liking, it should be soft and easily crushed between fingers; make a bit of space in the skillet and crack open 4 eggs. Salt and pepper the eggs and put on a tight lid to finish cooking the eggs in steam.

It shouldn’t take more than 4 minutes for the whites to set, while yolk remains runny. Keep the flame of your stove at medium low and cook it on a steady heat.

Enjoy with a fresh loaf of bread and some tomato based curry/sauce! Cheers!!

Nutella Mugsy!!!

The new fad of 1 minute mug cakes has hit us since long! But I delayed this post as much as I could. It’s not really my kind of thing to make mug cake for myself and eat. It’s so highly addictive!! And there is nothing stopping you from making these if you have the required ingredients at hand. But now with Ansh, work and full time cooking, my outlook to see these amazing marvels of science changed. If someone came to meet Ansh, I know I can whip up a dessert for them to have in a minute. And the texture of this little mug delicacy was very close to a cake pudding that I absolutely love!

While making this cake, I didn’t really care so much for the amounts of the ingredients used. It’s entirely up to you! If you want it fudgy, add more nutella. If you want it cakey, add a bit of flour. If you want it pudding-y, then follow the recipe I am giving out here. I love my mug cake to be more like a pudding. The smooth texture keeps it very nice and enjoyably edible even after it cools down, unlike other microwave cakes. 

Ingredients:

3 spoonfuls of Nutella

1 spoonful milk

1 egg

A big pinch of coffee

Method:

Combine the nutella and milk in a microwavable ceramic cup, and microwave the 2 on high for 15 secs.

Once the nutella melts, whisk the milk and nutella vigorously to cool it down, while fluffing the mix up.

Then add the egg, again stir it off nicely to make a nice chocolaty mix. Add the coffee and mix well.

Now microwave on high (900 watt) for a minute and 10 seconds! The cake would rise up madly and then flop down after cooling, quite like a soufle. It will remain gooey and chocolaty inside, while the top of the cake sets well. It’s almost like a wonderful mix of molten lava cake and a brownie.

Cheers!


The same post could also be found here. 

Masala Nuts on a Plate!

I am venturing into videos, for the very first time! After making a few of them, I am really excited and am trying different combinations and styles of video making. Bear with me for a few months, till I figure out my style. But it won’t be too long, I promise.

This is one of the first easy videos I made after Web-chef ones. I am embarrassed to even tell you how easy this recipe is. Completely adaptable to what u want or like! I keep doing so many different combinations of masalas, but this is the most classic and the first type I made. It’s another of my non-baked, easy veggie delight, and a staple at my place. Perfect easy snack on the go and a wonderful appetizer served with drinks. Hope you try it and make it into another success, just like our Pinwheel Kachoris!

Ingredients:

1/2 cup of Almonds

1/4 cup of Cashew nuts

1/4 cup Walnuts

1/8 cup dry Pumpkin Seeds

1/2 cup dried Cranberries

1/2 tsp Red Chilly Powder

1/2 tsp of Cinnamon Powder

1 tsp Cumin Powder

1.5 tsp Coriander Powder

Fine Table Salt to taste

Rock salt to taste

Dry Mango Powder to taste

Media Coverage!

We got Covered yet again, twice last week!! 

First in The Statesman- Unconventional route

To Read the article: http://www.thestatesman.net/news/39272-unconventional-route.html?page=2


Second in the Mid day: 

Ilish Bhanpe Recipe 

Weekday Dinner with Paneer Gravy-ed and Sumac-ed Cous-cous!!

Zouqh got a mention recently in DNA after hours. Apparently our Pinwheel Kachoris is in the must watch list from Famebox Webchef channel. So that propelled me to do more all veg recipes. A very good veggie friend of mine, since school, had always been asking me to give her recipes which are easy main course and non-baked. And so we figured, let’s go 100% veggie this time!

This is my go to meal on a boring Tuesday. After all the hoopla in the day, I would settle for a nice plate of warm curry and cous-cous. Intererstingly, this is very simple to conjure up, as it has no weeping onion or smelly hand garlic, involved!

Week day Dinner 2:- Curried vegetable-Paneer with Sumac cous cous with Nimbu ka achar (Lemon Pickle) and home-made curd.

          

Carbohydrates, in the form of Sumac cous cous

Protein and veggies in the form of curried vegetables and paneer

A fresh zing in the form of fridge cold, fresh homemade curd and nimbu ka achar (Lemon Pickle)

The pickle was store bought, from a certain gujrati food stall. The tangy sweet taste of the pickle was perfect accompaniment for the dinner. If you don’t have it, you could easily substitute it with homemade imli chutney (tamarind chutney) or mango chutney.

For the gravy dish, you would need:

200 gms Fresh Paneer (cottage cheese)

A handful of peas

3 small potatoes, cubed

½ tsp nigella seeds

Fresh coriander powder chopped

3 Green chillies slit

2 small tomatoes, pureed

½ tsp cumin powder

½ tsp coriander powder

¼ tsp red chilli powder

¼ tsp cinnamon powder

Salt to taste

Oil as needed

Water for the gravy

1 tsp Ginger paste

1 tsp of wholewheat flour

Method:

I know, the big list of ingredients look endearing, but these are very basic things which you would find lying in your kitchen shelf anyways.

In a non-stick wok, put in a couple tbsp of oil to heat up. Any flavourless oil will do. Once hot, let the nigella seeds crack in it.

I like to crack up my nigella seeds first so that I m ensured it’s got cooked and flavoured out. 

Now scatter the seeds on the sides, while u put half of the fresh cubed paneer in the hot oil to grill. I do just half as I like the flavour profile of a grilled paneer in a gravy, but I enjoy the soft creamy texture of the non grilled ones. So I went through lord buddhas’s middle path and grilled half for the flavour and kept half raw for the texture.

Once, both sides are seared, take them out and drain on a paper towel.

Now put in the cubed potatoes and fry till golden. Take them out and drain.

Now, put the nigella seeds back on the mid section and add the tomato puree mixed with turmeric, cumin, coriander and chilly powders. Let all the spices cook down well and reduce. The best way to know when it’s done is by checking the sides of the paste. If oil seeps out, the spices are well toasted and aromatic.

Now add in your peas and fried potatoes. Mix well and add water to the mix. Add enough water to cover all the veggies and let it come to a boil.

Once there, add the paneer and reduce the gravy to your liking. Check and season well.

As the last step, in a small bowl mix together the flour, ginger and cinnamon powder with a tbsp of water. Add it in the gravy and let it simmer for a couple of minutes. Sprinkle on the coriander leaves and take it off the heat.

Serve hot with a simple dish of cous cous which needs:

A big bowl with a tight lid

A cup of cous cous

Boiling hot water in a jug

Olive oil

Salt

Sprinkling of sumac powder (to your taste)

Put the couscous in the bowl and salt it well. Add the oil and mix well.

Now cover the cous cous with an inch more of hot boiling water and clamp on the lid.

Let it stand 5 minutes and fluff it well with a fork.

Now sprinkle on the tangy sumac powder to taste or squeeze on some lime juice.

Cous cous ready in literally 5 minutes!

Home-made creamy curd and some chutney; and you have a wonderful dinner ready in 30 minutes. Hot and steamy, perfect vegetarian comfort meal for the cold weather! 

Cheers!!