Chilli Paneer

My kids are both big fans of paneer.  They love Paneer Tikkas a lot and once we had Chilli paneer at Woodlands and they loved it and i tried to recreate it at home with no clue about the recipe and it turned out to be quite close.



I like this better than paneer tikkas as it is easier to make this. I use Nanak paneer that we get in the indian grocery store. I usually transfer it from the freezer to fridge few hours before i am planning to make and let it thaw in the fridge. When i am ready to make it, i put the unopened pack in hot water for few minutes to make it soft. Once the paneer is soft, cut it into small cubes.



Ingredients :



Paneer - 400gms

Capsicum - 1

Onion (Medium sized) - 1

Ching's Chilli Soy Sauce - 3 spoons

Salt - as required

Spring onions - 5 (finely chopped)

Green chillies - 4

Ginger - 1 small piece (grated)




Method :

First, heat a non stick tawa and spread a spoon of oil on it. Now toast the paneer cubes in medium-low for couple of minutes and toss them gently. Toast till they are golden brown.

In a pan, heat a spoon of oil and add the grated ginger and green chillies. Now add the onion and cook till they are translucent. Add the chopped capsicum and spring onions. Keep some aside for garnishing and add salt and cook it for sometime. The capsicum can be slightly crunchy. Now add the paneer and toss it and add the soy sauce. Reduce the heat and cover the pan and cook it on low for about 10 minutes. Now remove the pan and cook some more if you want it to be dry.

Garnish with springonions.

Chocolate brownies for the blog birthday

Today my blog turns 3 and today is also my brother's wedding anniversary..so that calls for a sweet recipe :)
I made brownies adapted from sailusfood with slight changes to it.  These tasted great..what can go wrong when there is so much butter :)

I made these for my little one when my first son went to watch a movie with his friend. My little one loves cashews, so i added some and they tasted so good. Even my first son who doesn't like nuts in cakes or brownies ate it without complaining.

Ingredients :

Butter - 1/2 cup ( 1 stick)
Sugar - 1 cup
Eggs - 2
Unsweetened cocoa powder - 1/3 cup
All purpose flour / whole wheat pastry flour - 1/2 cup
Cashews (chopped) - handful





1) Melt the butter in microwave for approximately a minute
2) Add sugar and mix well
3) Add one egg at a time and whisk well
4) Add cocoa, cashews and flour and mix well
5) In the meanwhile preheat oven to 350F and keep a baking pan greased and ready
6) Spread the brownie mix in the pan and bake it for approximately 35 minutes.
The edges should be slighltly dry and the top should look cracked.
7) Let it cool and cut it into squares.

Ellu Podi - Grandma's recipe

For Kanu (Day after Pongal), we make Kalandha saadham (Tamarind rice, coconut rice, ellu rice, curd rice,..etc.) and Avial.  Of all, ellu rice is my favorite. My grandma makes the best ellu saadham and this time when my mom came, i remembered to take down the recipe from her.

Ingredients :

White til - 200 gm


Red chillies - 6

hing (perungayam) - 1 pinch

salt - as required.

Method :


Wash the til and drain it and spread it on a clean cloth or paper towel and let it dry for an hour.
Dry roast it in a pan and when it starts to crackle, add the chillies and hing and roast some more.
Add salt and turn off the heat. Let it cool and grind it.

Mix with rice and ghee/nallennai (sesame oil/gingelly oil). Tastes best with avial. On lazy/hectic days, you can just have it with papad or fryums. This ellu podi is good for nursing mothers also.

Crackling Spinach - A Healthy snack / starter

First of all, i wish you all a very happy and prosperous new year! I know it's a little late, but i had so much to catch up both at work and home after a week long vacation towards the end of last year.


I thought i will post a healthy recipe for a good start :) I hope 2011 is not as bad as 2010 and i get to post more recipes this year. I saw this recipe in Pari's blog and wanted to try it immediately. It just looked way too tempting :) One catch was, it was deep fried. I thought of trying a low fat version and it came out really well. I just toasted the spinach on an electric griddle till it was dry and crunchy and it was really very tasty and crunchy. I can imagine how much tastier the original deep fried version would be. I will try it some day, but not in winter :)





Ingredients :


Baby Spinach - about 40-50 leaves
Sesame seeds - 1 tbsp
Red chilli powder - couple of pinches (as desired)
Salt to taste
Rice flour - 1 spoon



Method :

Wash the baby spinach and pat them dry with a paper towel. Cut into thin strips. Mix the rice flour. The original recipe called for corn flour and i substituted with rice flour as i didnt have corn flour. Heat the griddle at 400F and spread the spinach on it. Let it toast till they are dry and crinkly. Toss in between once or twice. Note that the quantity will reduce almost into half on heating. :-(





Once they are dry and crinkly remove them and keep aside in a plate. Do not cover. Now heat a small pan with a spoon of oil (Sesame oil will be good). Add sesame seeds and red chilli powder and cook for a minute. Add the dry spinach mix and salt and toss well for few seconds. It was awesome. My kids asked for more when it was done. Need i say more? :)

Easy Eggless Chocolate Cake

My kids asked me to make a chocolate cake or chocolate chip cookie for them and i didnt have cake mix with me and i thought of baking it from the scratch and when i searched for eggless cake, i found this recipe. It was too simple and perfect for baking beginners like me :) My kids loved it and so did we.

I adapted the recipe from Sumathi's blog. She had submitted this as an entry for Madhuram's eggless event using white vinegar as an egg substitute. I was a little apprehensive, but i did not smell the vinegar at all.  This also uses the ingredients we usually have at home and made my job easier.

Ingredients :

All purpose flour - 1.5 cups (Can use whole wheat pastry flour too)
Powdered sugar - 1 cup
Cocoa powder - 3 Tbsp (heaped)
Baking powder - 1 Tsp
Canola oil / vegetable oil - 5 tbsp
White vinegar - 1 tbsp  (I had missed this earlier. Thanks for pointing it out Veggiehut)
Vanilla essence - 1 spoon (optional)
Milk - 1 cup
Sliced Almonds - 1/4 cup (optional)

Method :

Mix all the dry ingredients together. Now add the oil, vanilla essence and milk and mix well, till it forms a smooth batter.
Preheat the oven to 350F.
Grease a baking pan with butter and dust with cocoa powder and pour the batter in the pan. If desired, add some chopped/sliced nuts on top of the batter. Bake it in 350F for approximately 25 minutes. To test if the cake is done, insert a tooth pick to see if it comes out clean.

The cake was super moist and delicious. I added nuts only on one half as my first son isn't too fond of almonds!

I didn't wait patiently for the cake to cool down and i cut it as soon as it was handle-able. So, it wasn't a clean job and it shows in my pictures!! But,i couldn't hold my excitement as this was my first cake from the scratch :-) and my two boys and my husband were waiting to attack the cake..so i had to take pictures before it was gone ;-)

Note : I removed the vanilla essence as soon as i poured it, because the brand i got had a very strong cough syrup smell. I bought this vanilla essence from an indian store and it had no information about the qty to be used on it. I was glad i removed it. Even the few drops that got mixed gave a mild medicine smell to the cake. I added heaped spoons of cocoa powder to get a darker colour and it looked very rich.
If you like your cake to be sweeter, please increase the sugar by another 1/4 cup or reduce the cocoa powder. It was perfect for us, with it being little less sweet. Both me and my husband like it that way.