No Crying, Just Cooking

If you feel you have too much on your plate, then its about time you started doing something that might feed more than just your stress or stomach. This Saturday, I just about had enough with all the Projects, Papers and Books that had become a staple part of my life and took a day off.

My mother had dragged in a cover filled with vegetables and put them on the table. With my life spinning out of control, the one thing I could still control was staring right at me. I thought : “Why not ? I could make something nice on a saturday and cooking would make me feel so much happier and stress free !”

So I walked into the kitchen and made it my own. I decided, Appetizers for the day would be non veg. Preferably something spicy which would add some buzz to my lustre-less life. I googled it and came across the perfect recipe !

In todays blog post I would be giving you my take on the dishes I made today. The terminologies are rather amateur and based on my observations, so my apologies in advance to real cooks who read this post 😛

Eral varuval ( Prawn Varuval )

This seemed to be a tangy pungent prawn dish which would definitely bring the perfect start to my late morning ! Whats more , it was so incredibly simple 😀

De-vein the prawns such that only the tail of the prawn is retained. The official recipe took even the tail off, but I like to keep them on as I feel this gives the prawn a beautiful shape after cooking as they dont curl up and shrink while, the shell gets a beautiful coloring.

Take a bowl and make a paste with the following ingredients :

• Ginger Garlic Paste
• Tamarind Pulp ( 1 Teaspoon is enough as we would be using even lemon)
• Lemon Juice
• Salt
• Red Chilli Powder
• Cumin Powder ( This adds that zest )
• Turmeric (About a pinch only, this is for a soft color)
• Rice Flour (This is for that texture)
• 1 Teaspoon vegetable oil ( acts as a binding agent)

Coat the prawn in this paste and use only 1 teaspoon oil in the frying pan while you fry the prawn. Remember the texture of the prawn should be soft and juicy, so do not over fry the prawn. Once it starts getting a little reddish brown , it can be taken off in a plate and served.

I served this dish with some piping hot Coffee and woahhhh the response was good ! My dad was just sighing about the juicy luscious prawns and this only motivated me to make something even more better for lunch.

I love Youtube by the way, you can search for anything, from “Tiramisu” to “simple paneer that makes me happy” and you will find a result 😛 Eventually I narrowed it down Kadai Paneer : which is a mouthwatering combination of paneer(Cottage Cheese), Vegetables and traditional Indian spices.  This is one of the most popular curry recipes of Indian and Punjabi cuisine.

Kadai Paneer

Dry Roast a table spoon of Fennel seeds, Coriander Seeds, Cumin Seeds, 2 pods of cardamom and clove and a few pepper corns. Remember the right time to take it off the pan is when the coriander seeds look a little light brown and there is a strong smell that has diffused in your entire kitchen. This should happen in roughly 5 minutes and make sure you donot keep the spices on the pan after, the burnt taste would ruin the entire dish.

Create a powder of the above spices by using a mixer grinder and keep aside.

Chop a onion into thin slices and chop 2 tomatoes into small blocks. Fry this in 1 teaspoon of vegetable oil till the onions have browned and the tomatoes have reached a squishy consistency. Add this mixture to the mixer grinder containing the powder previously made.

Grind this together to produce a thick paste of uniform consistency.

Now dice onions and peel off the individual shells. Chop some capsicum into blocks.

Add a small chunk of butter ( I used garlic butter as this had such a beautiful smell) to a pan, add ginger-garlic paste and the diced onions and capsicum blocks. Stir them to coat the vegetables in the mixture. This should last approximately 1-2 minutes and then add the previous mixture from the mixture grinder. Add the paste at intervals and stir so it cooks perfectly in the butter. Traditionally this dish is supposed to be made in ghee but I used garlic butter because I felt it smelt better, no other reason 😛

Add the cubes of cottage cheese or paneer into the gravy and cover the cubes up, add water to the gravy as and when you feel the mixture is getting too concentrated. Add some salt to taste and let the cubes of paneer cook.

In my final stir, I wanted a tangy finish to my Kadai Paneer so I added a little bit of tomato sauce. Finally garnish with coriander leaves and serve with Naan or Roti  and gear up to feel happy and satisfied 🙂