Food! Before and After Yoga.... Classic PBM

Once again after a heavy workout, I took a detour to Little India. I only had one mission. To pick up paneer (cottage cheese). I had a sudden craving for Paneer Butter Masala but I wanted to cook at home. So instead of gobbling it in a restuarant, I decided to give it a shot at home. I remembered most of the ingredients from memory (my dearest departed mother taught the rudimentaries of masala quite well). And I was not dissappointed at the end results. It was a fast dish to cook (20 min). And it went well with a regular gardenia bread. Yum! Yum! Unfortunately, I did not have my camera handy as I was too hungry and just gobbled the whole thing before I could say BURRPP!

There are only two ingredients that may sound very wierd. coconut and yoghurt. By now you would have realised that all the gravy in the North Indian dishes contain either cream or yoghurt. Home made yoghurt is hard to get here. Hence I use either Farmer's Greek style natural yoghurt or Paul's Natural set yoghurt. I prefer Paul's because its lighter in texture and is nearest to a home made yoghurt.

Quantity for the paneer is depending on how many are going to eat. I would say 500 gms would be fine. You cannot store paneer. To digress, I just want to share how paneer is really made. My mom used to take 5 litres of fresh milk (we used to get it straight from the animal). Put the milk to boil. While its boiling, you add a mixture of lemon and water (maybe 2 table spoons) while stirring the boiling milk. You can see the milk curdling (sounds yucky). When the milk curdles completely, turn off the heat. A fully curdled milk looks like broken iceberg submerged (I cant think of a better metaphorical comparison). Use a muslin cloth to drain the milk so that the paneer remains in the cloth and the rest of the milk is hasta-la-vista'ed. Now make a pouch of the cloth with paneer and hold it in running water. squeeze out the excess water. Voila! Paneer for you.

Back to PBM (Paneer Butter Masala). Get the following.

2 finely chopped onions (For gods sakes, dont use the electrical chopper), couple of chopped cloves of garlic or if you have no time like me, use a bottled chopped garlic, Small piece root ginger, peeled & chopped, couple of finely chopped tomatoes from one of the cans you get, a spoon of coriander seeds, few peppercorns, couple of cardamom pods, couple of cloves (hey, if you feel the urge to smoke, then pop a clove and see the results), a cinnamon stick, 1/2 tsp red chilli powder, 1 Tbsp desiccated coconut, 2 Tbsp of yogurt, 1 tsp. of vinegar, A pinch of dried fenugreek or methi as it is called, a pinch of Salt, and Vegetable oil

Now, my mom used to make it the traditional way, which I did and that is why the end result was gastronomic orgasm.

Heat skillet without oil. When hot, roast the coriander, peppercorns, cloves and cinnamon for a few seconds then grind them. I used the kitchen board and rolling pin since i dont have a pestle and mortar.

Place small amount of oil in skillet; add the onion and stir. Dump the chopped ginger to the spices in mortar and crushed together. Now throw in the cardamom pods and chilli powder and give the mixture a light bash (not like a jilted lover. Its more like "give it me, baby").

Add the spice mixture into the skillet with cooked onions; stir and cook for couple of minutes.
Put the tomato and vinegar. stir and continue to cook until the oil starts to separate out from the sauce. You can see the oil getting to the edge of the skillet. Add a small amount of water to thin sauce; add coconut, yogurt, salt and methi. Return to the boil. Grate a bit of the paneer and cut the remainder into cubes. Simmer gently until the paneer cubes are heated right through. If you think (from visual inspection) to thin the sauce again then do so and then add the paneer. Remember, this is a gravy dish. So keep a close watch on it.

For the entire cooking time, use your nose because there is no other way of knowing if its done or not. The best part is that paneer need not be really cooked. Raw paneer is also edible but a boiled or cooked paneer is awesome.

Burrrrppppp!