Paneer and sweetcorn curry

I haven't made this dish in a while and so I was looking through my blog to refresh my memory as to how I made it, and I was horrified to find I hadn't blogged it ever yet!

As Big'Un is at Uni and sometimes turns to Mama's blog to find the recipes for the dishes she misses, I thought I'd better get it blogged.  Turns out Middl'Un LOVED the dish and talked about needing me to "post it to her" when *she* goes to Uni, so I thought even MORE reason to get it written down! (So that she can cook it so I don't have to explain why I won't be able to post it...)

Ingredients:

• one pack of paneer (around 225-250g)
• 1 teaspoon of cumin seeds
• one small onion, finely chopped
• 3-4 cloves of garlic, sliced
• half a tin of chopped tomatoes
• 250g sweetcorn (I use frozen, but tinned would also be fine)
• pinch of turmeric if wished 
• salt to taste
• ground black pepper to taste

Method:

Cut the paneer block into smallish cubes, about the size of playing dice.  Fry gently in a little vegetable oil or ghee.  Keep turning until they are crispy and brown on all (or most of) the sides.  

Add the cumin seeds and when they start to sizzle, add the onion and garlic and fry gently until soft.  Add the turmeric if using.  Continue to fry until the rawness of the turmeric is gone, and the garlic and onion are very soft and translucent.

Add the tinned tomatoes and a little water.  Cover and cook until the tomatoes are "melted" down.  Stir well and add the sweetcorn. Season with the salt and pepper and cover.  Allow to simmer for 10-15 mins.  Stir well when done and serve with hot buttery chapatti.

Indo-Chinese not so chilli paneer

I had been hankering after a dish I've had in a couple of Indian eateries which I had no idea how to begin cooking, and also I knew I'd need to calm it down for the kids, and my decreasing chilli tolerance.  I did a bit of a Google and found out it is one of the interesting and completely unique Indo-Chinese dishes I have experienced when visiting family in Calcutta.  There is a fairly large Chinese community in Calcutta, originally based in the tannery areas, and the combination of Chinese food and Bengali tastes and ingredients led to some very regionally specific dishes. This style dish is made with chicken or paneer or tofu, and is delicious and easy. It is becoming more common in some Indian (NOT the Bangladeshi type) restaurants, and would be found under the name "Chilli Paneer" and my recipe would be very easy to re-chilli.  I adapted 2 or 3 of the different recipes I found to suit my own tastes. Oh and apparently it is often cooked with green pepper, which of course I can't/don't eat, so I put sweetcorn in instead.  I'm sure other veg would work such as courgette, green beans, baby corn or whatever takes your fancy!

1 pack paneer (I use Long Clawson from the supermarket which is 227g I think)
3 or 4 cloves garlic (or 1 clove and 1 large cube frozen garlic puree)
1 inch ginger, grated (or 1 large cube frozen ginger puree - often in supermarkets with ethnic foods)
half a bunch of spring onions
1 small red onion
1 cup of frozen sweetcorn
2 tbs ketchup
2 tbs soya sauce - Kikkoman
1 tsp vinegar, malt is fine 
2 tbs groundnut oil or similar
salt, pepper, chilli flakes
1 tbs cornflour

Start off by dicing up the paneer and putting it in a dish in one layer.  Finely chop or grate 1 clove of garlic and spread over the paneer.  Season with salt, pepper and the chilli flakes to taste.  I used VERY little.

Put the cornflour in a mug and add 5 tbs of water.  Mix well and pour over the paneer, toss them around briefly and ensure it is still in one layer.  Leave to marinade for 10 minutes.

Use the 10 minutes to chop the spring onions separating the white and green parts to use separately.  Chop the red onion too.  At this point I defrosted the frozen ginger and pureed the remaining garlic also.

Now heat a nonstick frying pan or saute pan with 1 tbs of the oil and fry the paneer, reserving the marinade.  Make sure you turn the pieces so 2 or 3 sides are browned and crisp.  At this point, try not to have no one but BigUn looking after Tiny, and Tiny has a nosebleed and BigUn isn't sure what to do or your paneer might burn. Luckily, BigUn was fine...and so was Tiny, and so was the paneer...

Remove with a slotted spoonand set aside, and add the 2nd tbs of oil if needed.  Now on a lower heat, fry the red onion and the white part of the spring onion until the onion is soft and transluscent.  Now add the garlic & ginger purees and fry on a slightly higher heat until the garlic no longer smells raw.  Now add the sweetcorn (or vegetable of your desire!)  If you were wanting to spice things up, now would be a good time to add some chopped green chilli, or red chilli etc.

Add the ketchup, soy sauce and vinegar, and add the paneer back in.  Stir and coat well and add half a mug of water. Heat the sauce up and then add the marinade too.  The sauce will thicken up very quickly, but you can always thin it down or add more of any of the sauces to taste.  Add the green part of the spring onion to serve.

We had this with bought naan bread and pitta breads, it is dryish, but you could as easily toss it through some noodles.  Big Un split her pitta and stuffed it full of paneer and ate it faster than a blink! I will admit Tiny Un really didn't even try this, but he enjoyed his pitta bread.  I guess it wasn't a protein day for him! Can't win them all.  Papa loved it and said he could easily have eaten the whole panful...

So who's wondering about Littl'Un? Thank you for asking! She was at Rainbows and had had cheese on toast before hand!

paneer

well, Morrison's don't sell paneer, and someone had bought up all the stock in Asda, so I got a pint of organic whole milk, and I made paneer. I was surprised to remember how easy and quick it is, but I had forgotten how little is made from a pint.
I do love the whey tho, the liquid that is strained off the solid cheese curd, and recall a sort of barley water flavour from my childhood, and so there wasn't really any wastage.
The milk is brought to the boil and as it starts bubbling, a tablespoon of yoghurt or lemon juice is stirred in and then you watch the magic as the milk separates.
I then lined a small strainer with a clean baby muslin and poured the contents of the pan gently through. I caught the whey in a bowl, and bundled up and pressed the excess muslin against the curds.
Half an hour later I had a lovely soft crumbly block of fresh paneer.
This I put into my curry at the last minute, crumbled up.
The curry was a very simple potato, onion, turmeric, sweetcorn, cumin thing; dryish and fragrant. I served the dish with bought chapattis and some pickles and poppadoms.