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I’ve never made a gravy for paneer with just yogurt as the main ingredient, and it only happened because I didn’t have a tomato in the house. There must have been a blue moon in the sky because normally I’m NEVER without tomatoes – unfortunately I didn’t look out of the window to check. Not that looking out would have helped because it was a dreary, cold, rainy evening with nothing to look at but soggy, dripping vegetation. No self-respecting moon would have bothered to light up.
Anyway, this yogurty paneer was pretty good, although since the chilli levels were low on account of Pete, he liked the dish much more than I did. Besides, I kept having to fight off the feeling that I’d been cheated of something “real”, much as I did when, as a kid, my grandmother would make what we called “mor(u)-chaar(u)” – basically seasoned and tempered buttermilk - and serve that up as the first course of a meal. Usually this was when she hadn’t had enough time to make something more substantial, but what did I know or care about her kitchen dilemmas at that age! All that bothered me was that her quickfix solution was cheating me of a more interesting first course!
I usually put up a bit of a grumble because to me, the buttermilk wasn’t a “real” kuzhambu or gravy – not like sambar or even mor-kuzhambu (which has a spicy ground coconut masala to jazz it up). I guess my main gripe was that, with the curds only thinly disguised as the “chaar”, we ended up with curd rice for both courses. (My naaku was always neeLam – literally, that my tongue was always long… *heh* idiomatically, meaning that I had a keen sense for – and appreciation of - good food) right from when I was young.
Recipe for: Paneer in cashewnut-yogurt gravy
Ingredients:
1-1/2 cups fresh-made paneer cut into ½” cubes
1” piece ginger
2-3 cloves garlic
1 tsp coriander seeds
1 cm piece cinnamon bark
2 dried red chillies (or to taste)
7-8 cashewnuts
2 onions quartered and separated
1-1/2 cups low-fat Greek yogurt
1 bay leaf
1 cup water
2 tsp oil
2 tbsp coriander leaves
Salt to taste
1. Fry the paneer in 1 tsp oil till golden, and reserve.
2. Put the onions in a saucepan and pour in just enough boiling water to cover them.
Cover the pan and simmer the onions for 6-7 minutes or till cooked (it will look transparent and soft). Cool (retain the cooking water if there is any left).
3. Grind the ginger, garlic, coriander seeds, cinnamon and red chillies if using into a fine paste. Reserve.
4. Next, grind the boiled onions with the cashewnuts to a smooth paste.
5. Heat the oil in a pan and fry the ginger-garlic paste for a minute or so. Add the bay leaf now.
6. Then add the cashewnut paste and stir for another minute.
7. Pour in a ladleful of yogurt, stirring briskly, then add the rest of the yogurt and stir well to mix the contents thoroughly.
8. Add a cupful of water and stir, then bring the gravy to a gentle simmer. Add the paneer pieces and stir.
9. Simmer for 5-6 minutes, then sprinkle over the coriander leaves.
Serve hot with rotis.
I’m pretty sure I don’t have much to say in this post, so of course I’m going to try and say it in as many words as possible. It’s obligatory to do so, the First Law of Writing (except that it’s always been an unwritten law, ironically) which I am now vocalising via the written word. The self-styled “expert” analysts who contribute to newspapers, especially in the political and economic areas, are the most obvious propagators of this law. The less you have to say, the more verbose you get. You might have noticed that your favourite writer pretty much always leaves you wanting more. On the other hand, the boring ones just as predictably can lay an entire rainforest’s worth of trees to waste with just one article.
Now I’m beginning to feel like A A Gill, the food and restaurant critic of The Times. He’s supposed to review different restaurants but usually writes for more than half the article (every single time, too) about something completely irrelevant and as far off the topic of food and restaurants as... let’s say, as far off as Big Brother is from an intelligent programme. As one of his readers put it: “I think I finally have the hang of an AA Gill "restaurant review". Talk about something that has nothing whatsoever to do with restaurants (hernia operations, personal loves and loathes, politicians, etc.) and then, at the end, write the name, address and a brief, caustic opinion.
Louise, London, UK”
So, now that we have the “nothing much to say” out of the way, let me say a few brief words about this biscuit/cookie: It’s eggless, it’s nice, it was made by my cousin Hema during her visit to Shrewsbury, and she took it home with her so that her lucky parents could have a taste of her first baking efforts.
That’s all I really had to say in the first place.
Recipe for: Cranberry orange cookies
Ingredients:
1 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup butter, softened
1/8 cup milk
3 tbsp fresh orange juice
1 tbsp yogurt
1-1/2 cups plain/all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt
1/8 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup chopped dried cranberries
1/4 cup chopped nuts (we used pistachios and cashewnuts)
Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 190°C/375°F.
2. Cream together the sugar and butter in a large bowl.
3. Stir in milk, orange juice and yogurt.
4. Stir in flour, baking powder, salt and baking soda.
Add cranberries and nuts
and stir lightly into the dough.
4. Form dough into balls (approximate will do) with slightly wetted fingers and drop onto cookie sheet.
5. Bake 10 to 15 minutes or until light brown around the edges.
Immediately remove from cookie sheet and cool.
Over the next few days - or weeks, depending on the levels of sloth and indifference - I'll be posting a few recipes of cookies and cakes that Hema (my cousin) and I baked. Well, mostly Hema, with me hovering around "instructing". Yes, that's what I like to call it. The first of these was eggless peanut butter cookies.
So here is a recipe for eggless cashew vanilla cookies. There arent any takers for cookies in my house, unless you count Hobnobs (chocolate-covered digestives) of which Pete is inordinately fond. I'm not likely to be making those, so I stand by my statement that there arent any takers for cookies in my house.
It's only because Hema was there that I made cookies at all. These were nice, but I think they would have been better with the cashews being lightly toasted first rather than used raw as I did. And also, be very sure to remove the cookies from the baking tray after 2 minutes - they will get increasingly more difficult to remove if they cool on the tray itself. You have been warned.
Recipe for: Cashew vanilla cookies
Ingredients:
1 cup plain/all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/8 tsp salt
1/4 cup soft butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/3 cup yogurt (original recipe said to use cream)
4 tbsp chopped cashews (lightly toasted if you like)
Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F.
2. Sift together the flour, salt, baking powder and soda.
3. Cream the butter, sugar and vanilla. Beat until smooth.
4. Add flour mixture and yogurt, stir in till well incorporated.
5. Mix in cashews.
6. Drop by tablespoons (or use lightly wetted fingers to shape into balls) on ungreased (yes, ungreased) cookie sheet 1-1/2 inches apart.
Bake for 10-12 minutes or until the tops are golden brown.
7. Cool 2 minutes in the oven, then immediately remove to racks. Cool and store in an airtight container.
