Cheese with butter & Vegetables {Paneer Makhanwala}

 

“An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind” – Mahatma Gandhi.  I remember learning this quotation when we had to study about Gandhi in school.  Like everything else we learn, it stays somewhere back of your mind and reappears again in the most unexpected of circumstances.

Today I was reading the papers and came across this case in Iran where in 2004 a young boy blinded a girl by throwing acid on her face and disfiguring and blinding her.  After several hearings and trial, the courts decided that the lady could:

(a)    Forgive him

(b)   Retribution

The lady chose retribution – to blind and disfigure the perpetrator with acid.  She decided – an eye for an eye – literally.  The case has received international attention as many human rights organizations oppose this judgement.  What would you have done were you to be in the woman’s place had you only two options to choose from?  You would need an awfully large and kind heart to forgive or a really strong and cold heart to choose retribution. In the coming days we will see how Iran responds to this international and internal pressure and attention this case has drawn.  But I think the world would be better off having one less blind person in the world. 

As mentioned in my previous posts on paneer, it is a type of fresh cheese that is vegetarian based, i.e. lemon is used as the coagulation agent.  Hence this cheese is perfect for those vegetarians and vegans who would like to include cheese in their diet.

Preparation Time: 30 minutes

Serves: 4

Ingredients:

2 cups boiled beans, peas and carrots

75 grams paneer cubes

1 tablespoon clarified butter

1 tomato, finely chopped

1 medium sized onion, finely chopped

¼ teaspoon ginger paste

¼ teaspoon garlic paste

2 tablespoon tomato purée

¼ teaspoon red chilli powder

¼ teaspoon garam masala

2 teaspoon sugar

1 ½ teaspoon all purpose flour

2 tablespoon milk

¾ cup fresh cream

1 cup water

Salt to taste

Method:

1. Heat butter in a thick bottomed vessel.  
2. When hot, add the onions and fry till light brown.  
3. Add the tomatoes and fry for 4 minutes on a medium flame.  
4. Add the ginger-garlic paste, tomato purée, garam masala, red chilli powder and fry for a couple of minutes more.  
5. Add the boiled vegetables along with the paneer cubes, water and sugar and stir for another minute.  
6. Mix the milk and flour separately and add to the above gravy along with the fresh cream.  
7. Cook for 5 minutes until the gravy is thick.  
8. Add salt to taste and stir.  Serve hot with rotis, naan or rice.

Spicy Prawns with Okra

 Bureaucracy – I have been affected by that recently so I wanted to write about it.  I have Indian nationality and in summer I have to fly 1 hour transit through Heathrow (London) on my way to India.  I know some countries require you to have a visa even for transit, which I respect.  And of course I have a permanent residence permit in Belgium, not to mention my husband and two children have British Nationality.  So, how difficult would it be for the British Consular section to issue a visa for me?

Things are not as easy as they seem.  There is no consular section of the British Embassy in Belgium.  This has been outsourced to Worldbridge which is based in an alley in Paris, France.   So, I board the train from Midi to Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris.  Once I reach there, I take two other trains and one metro to reach the place where I am to make my visa application.  I have all my documents along and my appointment set.  When I approach the gates, I am greeted by a huge African guard who tells me I have to wait in the line – appointments do not count apparently.  So anyway, I was seated on the chair along with tens of others and after a good hour, I was summoned to this lady who checked my application and picture and then gave me a number and ushered me to another room with more chairs and even more people. 

Luckily I found some to chat with who was from INSEAD.  So at least there was my time-killer because it was another hour before I was summoned to another counter to submit my documents – my old and new passports, my birth and marriage certificates, passports of my husband and children and our pay slips – everything in original and copy.  The person behind the counter even advised me to fly Emirates next time so I do not need to use BA with its delays and visa problems.  After submitting all the documents, and another 30 minutes later, I was taken for the biometric data and informed that it would be 5 to 10 working days before I would hear from them.  If I wanted to call them, this would cost me 14 USD a minute.  So, I got back on the metro and the two trains and then back to Brussels in the Thalys hating the bureaucracy and the system even more.  I am from India remember – I am used to bureaucracy – but this was much worse than that…that too from a country like the United Kingdom.

Time: 20 minutes

Serves: 4

Ingredients:

 

4 tablespoons corn oil

225 grams okra, washed, dried and left whole

4 garlic cloves, crushed

2” piece fresh root ginger, crushed

1 green chilli, cut diagonally

½ teaspoon turmeric powder

6 curry leaves

1 teaspoon cumin seeds

450 grams king prawns, peeled and de veined

2 teaspoons brown sugar

Juice of two lemons

Salt to taste

Method:

1. Heat oil in a frying pan and cook the okra on a fairly high heat until they are slightly crisp and browned on all sides.  Remove from the oil and keep aside on a piece on kitchen paper.  
2. In the same oil, gently cook the garlic, ginger, chillies, turmeric, curry leaves and cumin seeds for 3 minutes.  
3. Add the prawns and mix well.  Cook until the prawns are tender.  
4. Add the salt, sugar, lemon juice and cooked okra.  
5. Increase the heat for a further 5 minutes, stirring gently to prevent the okra from breaking.  Adjust the seasoning if necessary.  Serve hot.  

Tip:  Okra should be cooked rapidly to prevent the pods from breaking up and releasing distinctive thick, sticky liquid.  Try to buy firm brightly coloured pods – large pods may be tough or fibrous.

Spinach Soup

If you had a son and a daughter, and enough money to educate only one of them, which one would you choose?  This is not a trick question – but something to think about.  Luckily for many of us, we are not faced with this dilemma.  But in many countries it is a decision parents have to make and in many cases the boy is chosen over the girl.  The reasoning behind this – he would be the future breadwinner of the household.  What about the girl who would be the first educator of the next generation.  She would be a mother some day and if she is educated would be able to impart the same education to her children.  Is this not a valid reason to choose the education of the girl over the boy in this instance?

I am not a women’s rights advocate or one of those feminists.  However, I do believe that both men and women are like the wings of a bird – for the bird to fly and rise high, both the wings need to be strong and equal.  When talking about equality of man and woman, many take this literally.    For example, men could be physically stronger and perhaps women emotionally more stable. So based on our physique and emotional capabilities as just one example to point out the differences, it is obvious that “equality” is not literal.

Time: 10 minutes

Serves: 4 portions

Ingredients:

Basic Bechamel Sauce (4 portions)

30 grams flour

30 grams butter

300 ml milk

Salt and white pepper to taste

1 medium onion

1 clove

1 bay leaf

Method:

1. Steep onion stuck with the clove and bay leaf in milk.  Bring to boil.  
2. Blend together flour and butter over low flame.  Take off fire.  
3. Strain boiled milk and add little at a time to the flour-butter mixture.  
4. When all the milk has been added, return to fire.  
5. Add salt and pepper and cook over low fire till flour is well cooked and sauce is smooth and glossy.

Cream of Spinach Soup

 

Time: 10 minutes

Serves: 4

Ingredients:

250 grams spinach

Salt to taste

750 ml stock

4 portions béchamel sauce

1. Clean and wash spinach.  
2. Cook in stock with salt.  Rub through sieve when cooked. 
3. Blend béchamel sauce with spinach.  Reheat and serve. 

Gram Dal with Lamb {Dalcha}

Some memories are etched so clearly in our minds while others tend to fade away with time.  Some things we remember almost forever, while others we tend to forget almost immediately.  Memories that tend to linger in my mind are sometimes related to food.  It could be a good restaurant we ate at, some dish we ate at a friends’ place that was good or an incident related to looking for a particular ingredient for something I wanted to cook.  I have other memories too, but wanted to talk about those related to food – one in particular which came up today – Ethiopian food.

While we were living in Yemen, we came across Ethiopian cuisine.  I fell in love with the flavours and tastes in these dishes.  There was a subtle mix of spices, vibrant colours and all eaten with the special bread called injera which is similar to the Indian dosa.  I remember a friend who had this Ethiopian maid who would make this food for us, and in keeping in line with Ethiopian tradition, everyone eats from the same large plate.  It was chicken prepared in a flaming red sauce of spices that were specially prepared and brought by her from Ethiopia.  The bread is spread across the plate and this spicy mixture is spread all over the bread which you then eat with your hands.  A nice memory I treasure to this day – the food, the company, the place. 

The dish below is also one of those foods that bring nice memories to my mind – memories of a childhood and having this food during the monsoons after getting back from school – wet and cold.  I have prepared it with lamb, but you can substitute any meat to it or even make it without anything.

Preparation Time: 2 hours

Serves 4

Ingredients

½ kilo lamb

¼ kilo gram dal (chana dal)

1” piece ginger

12 cloves garlic

3 green chillies

½ teaspoon red chilli powder

½ teaspoon turmeric powder

1 teaspoon garam masala

½ tablespoon coriander seeds

½ tablespoon cumin powder

4 big onions

2 large tomatoes

1 cup yoghurt

2 tablespoon corn oil

1 tablespoon coriander leaves, chopped

Salt to taste

¼ cup hot water

Method:

1. Wash and soak the gram dal in water for 3 hours.  
2. Lightly roast the cumin and coriander seeds and grind to a fine powder.  
3. Separately grind the ginger garlic and green chillies to a paste and keep aside.  
4. Wash the lamb and cut into medium sized cubes.  
5. In a bowl beat the yoghurt lightly.  To the yoghurt add the cumin-coriander powders, ginger-garlic-chilli paste, salt, red chilli powder, turmeric powder and garam masala.  Now add the meat to this mixture and mix it well.  Cover and refrigerate for upto 1 hour.  
6. Finely chop the onions and keep aside.  
7. In a thick bottomed vessel add 1 tablespoon oil and when it is hot, add the onions.  
8. Fry this till the onions are golden.  Now add the meat-yoghurt mixture and keep on a low flame, covered, for about 20 minutes or till the meat is cooked.  
9. Keep stirring in between and add the hot water if the mixture is too dry.  
10. When the meat is cooked, turn off the flame and keep this aside.  
11. Pressure cook the dal in 2 cups of water for about 20 minutes and mash to a thick consistency.  
12. In another vessel, heat the remaining one tablespoon of oil and when it is hot, add the chopped tomatoes to this.  
13. Fry till the tomatoes are soft.  Now add the mashed dal to this vessel and stir well.  
14. When it begins to bubble, add the meat mixture and stir well.  
15. Serve hot with steamed rice, garnished with coriander leaves.