These days the paneer quality that we are getting here isnt that great. It almost makes the paneer as my non liked item which is not the case. Ajoy and me both like paneer a lot so that is unacceptable.. Its not like i never made paneer, I had been making this for sweets regularly but didnt make it for vegetable for the good quality paneer was always available.. But since now that is not the case I decided to make this for adding it to the vegetables too. Turns out i was missing so much for last few years that I didn't make it at home.


Ingredients
2 Liter Whole Milk
3 Spoon Vinegar

Method

• Bring milk to boil.
• When it almost comes to boil add in vinegar mixed with cup of cold water and stir well.
• Milk will cuddle and separate from whey.
• Pour this into the cheese or muslin cloth and let water drain out.
• Run in cold water through it to let it come to room temperature. Tie the muslin cloth tightly.
• Fill in the cooker fully with water and keep it on top of the paneer. Let it rest overnight.

Notes
Lot of people use lemon juice but i like to use vinegar as it is easy to remove the sour taste that it brings in and paneer gets its own taste.
Don't use half and half for this, the paneer would be too creamy and wont give you the texture you need in the paneer. Whole milk or reduced fat milk would be perfect for this.

Since childhood my favourite fruit was Fig more than even mango.. With known love i share for mango it would be hard to believe but its true :) Whenever i had to choose something while playing i would always pick fig.. Then as i grew up i was introduced to Sujata's (the famous ice-cream parlour in pune) fir ice-cream... Even till date whenever I go to pune i have atleast a tub of fig ice-cream.. So now you might wonder how come i waited so long to make this ice-cream then, but the thing is it was so hard to find dried figs here that I had to get them from India :) So now that I have it I couldnt wait but make this awesome gelato..


Ingredients
1 Liter Milk
250g Dried Fig
3/4 Cup Honey
1 Spoon Lemon Juice

Method

• Soak the figs in two cup of milk. Keep aside for atleast two hours
• In a mixie grind the soaked fig to paste, keeping aside 4-5 figs.
• Add in lemon juice and honey and blend again.
• Add this paste to remaning milk and stir well.
• Set the ice-cream as per ice-cream maker instructions.
• Dice the remaining figs and mix it in the set ice-cream.

Notes
I dont like to wait after i start making ice-cream, so I use chilled milk. Also while soaking figs, i keep them in fridge that way they chill too and i dont need to wait for the mixture to chill before i put it in ice-cream maker.

Its been a while since Seattle saw sun barring couple of days last week so having barbeques in patio is long gone time. But this is my effort to feel like those beautiful sunny evenings.. I came up with recipe on my own as I started adding spices but the taste was so good that i cant wait to fry remaining prawns tomorrow night.


Ingredients
3/4 Kg Prawns
1 Spoon Tandoori Masala
1 Spoon Red Chilli Powder
1 Spoon Corriander Powder
1/2 Spoon Jeera Powder
1/4 Spoon Garam Masala
1/4 Spoon Turmeric Powder
1/2 Spoon Ginger Paste
1/2 Cup Thick Curd
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

• Clean the prawns shells and marinate it with salt.
• Add in ginger paste, chilli powder, corriander powder, jeera powder, garam masala, turmeric powder and mix well. Keep aside for atleast half an hour.
• Add oil to a pan and heat it really well.
• In the earlier marinated prawns, add in tandoori masala and curd. Mix well. Add this mixture onto the heated pan.
• Let the prawns cook on medium heat without flipping or stirring them till the side is completely done. Then flip them and cook the otherside too. Take of the heat and serve.

Notes
Cooking on medium heat and not flipping the prawns serves as great trick to get that tandoori-charred-smoky flavour that any authentic tandoori dishes have.

Kadboli is Maharashtrian faral dish. You might wonder why am i posting this after so many months of diwali. But given that world cup has started in full swing, i thought it would be good to have some crunchy home made snack instead of just plain chips. So late on sunday I decided to make them whole lot of kadbolis and soon realised that it is too much of work to shape them. Thats when I came up with the idea of using chakali gun with this disc to shape them instead. With these they are bite size and make perfect snack for movies or games :)


Ingredients
4 Cup Rice Powder
3 Cup Milk
1 Cup Butter
Salt to taste
Oil

Method

• Mix rice powder with butter and salt really well
• Add in milk and make the dough
• Take a small lemon sized balls and roll them with hand and make a long rope shape. Give it in a shape of circle. Fry in medium hot oil till pink in color
• Alternately, put in the dough in the chakali gun and press the circular shapes in the medium hot oil and fry till pink in color

Notes
Dont fry till brown in color as the color darkens a bit after a while.