spices

For those of you not in the know and unwilling to look it up on Wikipedia, paneer is a cottage cheese used in South Asian cooking. It can either be crumbly or in block form, doesn’t contain rennet and so is completely vegetarian, and refuses to melt when heated. It has a good texture but its flavour is the mild side of bland. It is essentially just a conduit for other flavours and needs to be spiced up or marinated. Don’t we all.

Preparation time: 10 minutes plus 2 hours to marinate
Cooking time: 7 – 10 minutes
Skill level: Easy

Ingredients

  • paneer – 200g – cut into 1 cm slices
  • sunflower oil – 1½ tbsp
  • gram flour – 1½ tbsp
  • yoghurt – 130g
  • ground coriander – 1 tsp
  • tumeric powder – 1 tsp
  • chilli powder – ½ tsp
  • mint – 2 tbsp – chopped (or mint sauce)
  • ginger – 1 tbsp – chopped
  • cumin – 1 tsp
  • saffron – pinch

Heat the oil and stir in the flour to form a roux. Set aside to cool.

Place the paneer in an oven proof dish.

paneer

Mix the roux together with all the remaining ingredients to form the marinade. Pour over the paneer and leave to marinate for at least 2 hours

Place in a pre heated oven (220C/gas mark 7) for 7 – 10 minutes.

Serve immediately

Verdict: Very spicy. Very tasty. Very good.

Drink: Fizzy.

Entertainment: ‘Run Lola Run’ on DVD. Buy Lola Buy or Rent Lola Rent, but just Watch Lola Watch.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

%d bloggers like this: