Paneer Kathi Rolls

ashuskitchen recipe -Paneer Kathi Rolls

The food packed for the school lunchbox should be nutritious, healthy, balanced and most importantly appealing to the kids. It is always challenging to manage to pack food keeping all these factors in mind, especially if the kids are foodies and very picky in taste. My kids, like most kids love Paneer, it is a good source of Vegetarian protein. It is one of the best ingredients to make recipes that are quick, easy to make as well as nutrient packed. Sharing here today one of the many recipes of Paneer that I make in my kitchen, an extremely easy and yummy roll that is best for school lunch, as breakfast or a wholesome snack for a brunch or picnic or travelling. My Jr. does not like it if I pack the vegetables and roti or paratha seperately, and hence the Wrap or Rolls always are a welcome food item.

Almost all households with kitchen have the basic spices and condiments handy, using the fresh ingredients like the paneer, green coriander, spring onions, fresh peas the rolls have a softer and more juicy filling and are very tasty. If fresh paneer and peas are not available then we can make use of frozen one, as I have done for this one. Having lived in Vadodara I am very fond of using Amul products in my kitchen and hence I sometimes get the frozen paneer packet to stock up the fridge for moments when I cannot get the fresh paneer from the stores. I am sure most of you too must be using Amul products, and have eaten Amul butter and Cheese since childhood.

INGREDIENTS: (Makes 8-10 Rolls)

Paneer: 250 gm

Mutter/ Fresh Green Peas : 100 gm

Mixed Bell Peppers : 1 cup finely chopped

Onion/Spring onion: 1 Small

Oil: 2 Tbsp

Ginger Garlic paste: 1 tsp

Coriander Powder: 1 Tbsp

Red Chili Powder: 1 Tsp

Garam Masala Powder: 1 Tsp

Chat Masala Powder: 1 -2 Tbsp (as required)

Salt : To taste

Tomato: 1 small (Optional)

METHOD:

Defrost and dip the frozen paneer in hot water, this makes it softer. Drain and dry on a kitchen tissue roll. Grate or crumble the cubes and keep in a plate.

Heat a Kadai and put 2 tsp oil into it. Add the finely chopped onion.

Then add the ginger garlic paste, saute and then add the peppers and green peas. Cook for 3-4 minutes, fresh peas do not take long to cook.

Then add the paneer crumble and sprinkle all the dried spices and salt and mix well. Turn off the heat and lastly add the teaspoon of the garam masala powder.

The filling for the roll is ready.

Take the chapati and apply the parsley or Basil pesto if you have it handy, then take a tablespoon of the paneer filling and lay it on the chapati, sprinkle pinch of chaat masala and roll the chapati carefully and tightly so that the filling does not spill out.

Roll out this size Chapati

ashuskitchen recipe-Paneer Kathi Roll

Make all the rolls and keep them in the grill machine for couple minutes so that the rolls become crispy on the outside and retain the shape.

Cut the rolls and serve with a dip or simply pack them as is for the school or office lunchbox.

NOTE: The tomato can be finely chopped and spread over the filling if the rolls are eaten instantly or otherwise can be added to the Paneer filling when it is being cooked.

For making the chapati follow the fulka recipe here. I made the roti a bigger size than the Fulka and applied oil/ghee on top of the roti and cooked it on the Tava/fry pan and not puffing it on the gas stove as for Fulka.

For the Parsley or Basil pesto follow the recipe here.

You could avoid using the pesto and apply coriander mint chutney too if that is handy. I always keep these pesto handy in the refrigerator and hence I can make the rolls at any given time as all the ingredients are readily available in my kitchen.

This recipe was saved to draft and was supposed to be on the blog earlier in January, but I completely forgot about it. I had made these rolls for my daughter when she was attending a Concert in Abu Dhabi on the New Year’s eve 🙂 .

Hope you like this Zhat -pat recipe of mine and try it out in your kitchen.

Enjoy!

ashu.

 

 

 

Tandoori Paneer

ashus-Tandoori Paneer

Last week, as already mentioned in my earlier posts, I had made a tandoori platter for my lunch. It had lots of Tandoori prawns, Paneer, Ghongura prawns and also baked chicken breasts. A sudden snag in the laptop functioning resulted with me having to take a forced break from my writing and posting up the remaining tandoori posts. Finally, after a gap of couple days, the laptop snag is corrected and now it is functioning fine and here I am completing the few posts that were well due last week, yeah I had made a mental note of posting them :).

ashus-Tandoori Platter

For this tandoori paneer recipe I used the cubes of paneer.  I prefer to buy fresh paneer for making any dish, but always keep a packet or two of paneer in the freezer for those occasions when I get sudden urges of cooking paneer dishes  and cannot go to the supermarket to buy.  The packaged paneer cubes come handy when we are adding few cubes to a recipe, mixing vegetables and paneer, or adding few cubes to any potato filling etc. Keep paneer packet in the lower compartment of the refrigerator overnight, it gets thawed well. One can also empty the contents of the frozen paneer packet and keep on the kitchen platform for an hour or so and the cubes easily get thawed and can then be readily used for cooking. One could also use the thawing function of the Microwave for that matter, but I never go for this option.

TANDOORI PANEER

This is yet another simple and a quick recipe. You need paneer cubes, lemon juice, whole soaked Kashmiri Chili and Tandoori masala for this recipe. In case the store bought masala is not available at home you can use a mix of red Chili powder, coriander powder, chaat masala, garam masala, and cumin powder. You can either make a paste of the soaked Kashmiri chili and dried masalas as I have done here or can simply use the dried masala mixed with oil and lemon. If you have Kashmiri chili powder you can add a teaspoon of it to the dried masala, lemon and oil and use it as the marinade. Sharing here the method in which I made a wet paste of the chili and masala and ground it to smooth in a Mixie pot.

INGREDIENTS:

Paneer cubes: 250 gms

Kashmiri Red Chili: 2 no

Tandoori masala powder: 2 Tbsp

Lemon: 1/2

Olive oil: 1 Tbsp

Salt: To taste

Turmeric: 1 Tsp

Note: You can use any cooking oil of choice.

METHOD:

Soak the Kashmiri red chili in hot water, they are easier to grind after soaking as they become soft.

ashus-Soaked Kashmiri Red Chili

Preheat the oven to 200 deg C on the grill and oven setting.

Grind the Kashmiri chili along with the Tandoori masala powder, salt, lemon juice and some oil.  Adding oil helps make a smooth paste and we can easily coat this paste on the paneer and keeps prevent paneer from drying up in the intense heat of the grill. Keep the marinated cubes in fridge for 30 min before grilling, you can avoid this if are in a hurry to eat. The marinated paneer cubes taste better if we allow the marinade to soak in.

ashus-Paneer cubes and the tandoori marinade.

Put the marinated paneer cubes in the preheated oven for 10- 15 minutes, tossing in between, so that all sides are grilled to perfection. The oven time depends upon the oven used at home, use self discretion, do not over grill the cubes as they toughen and then taste like rubber.

ashus-Tandoori Paneer cubes

These paneer cubes were bit crisp on the outside and soft inside with the perfect blend of tandoori masalas, Yummy was my Jr’s comment!! 🙂

NOTE: In case you do not have a grill or oven at home, you can use a fry pan to cook the paneer. Heat the frying pan, add cooking oil of choice and put the marinated paneer cubes and cook on medium-to-slow flame, taking care not to burn them. Cook the cubes for only 10-15 min, turning/ tossing once so that both sides become crisp.  Do not cook for long as the paneer will harden and become rubbery. (I have used smaller cubes and hence the time needed for grilling was less, and the grill/oven was already hot.)

SERVING: Serve the piping hot grilled paneer cubes with a mint yogurt chutney/dip. You can check out ashus Yogurt dip recipe in the Archives.

Check out other Tandoori recipes in the Archives.

Enjoy!

ashu

Vegetarian Dough Balls: Recipe 2

Yummy vegetarian Dough Balls

Thank you to all who have appreciated and liked my yesterdays post of Vegetarian Dough Balls: Recipe 1. (Click here for the recipe.)

Today I am posting another recipe of Dough Balls, but with a different filling inside. As mentioned in the previous post the choice of filling makes as many varieties of the Dough balls as we choose to experiment. Small changes in ingredients gives each recipe the necessary twist and makes it unique in its own way. It is sometimes the simple ingredients available in the refrigerator that are sufficient to give us a complete new dish, we just need to let our imagination led us to create. I believe this is true  in our day to day life too, one must not get into the routines of following the same pattern, we should always keep room for some change. To explain better giving an example, the same settings in the house over a long period makes it very dull and unappealing, and just a shift of position of the same furniture, and/or of the wall hangings, paintings, or even adding fresh indoor plants gives the same old room a complete makeover. For this one needs to make it happen, and unless we do not make the changes one would not know the difference it makes. Try it out for yourself and notice the change it brings. For me, adding lots of green indoor plants works the magic, makes the room more fresher and just makes the whole environment a more happy place.

The current recipe uses vegetables and cottage cheese. I was asked by my vegetarian friends to post vegetarian recipes too, this is for all those friends and my readers. I loved experimenting with these ingredients and the result was loved by all who ate, and sharing here I wish to spread this happiness to all of you who would give it a try.

Baking is a joy that needs to be experienced, I know how fast the baked dishes disappear from the plates, but the aroma that fills the house lingers on. These moments are the simple pleasures of life.

VEGETARIAN DOUGH BALLS:

INGREDIENTS:

Pizza Dough: 500gm (Please click here for the dough recipe).

Carrot: 1

French Beans: 100 gm

Green Peas: 50 gm

Onion: 1 Small

Cottage Cheese/Paneer: 150 gm

Oil: 1Tbsp (for cooking the vegetables)

SEASONING:

Salt: To taste

Chili Flakes: 2 Tsp

Black pepper powder: 1 Tsp

Dried Oregano: 1 Tsp

Mint Chutney: 1 Tbsp

METHOD:

Dice the Paneer and Carrot into small pieces. Finely chop the onion, and cut the French beans.

Heat a pan or Kadai over gas flame and add little oil and put the cut vegetables and peas and cook for 10 min. Add the seasonings and mix well. Add the grated/diced paneer and mix. Remove the pan from the gas stove and empty the contents into a bowl. As this cools add the mint chutney and mix well. (Recipe of the chutney to follow in the next post.) This is the filling for the dough balls.

Veg Dough Ball filling

Preheat the oven to 200 deg C.

Knead the pizza dough and make small balls of equal portion. Roll out each dough to form a circular shape puri and spoon 1-1/2 Tbsp filling in it.

Roll out the dough

Filling

Close the circular ends together giving it a ball shape. Let all the ends of the circular shaped dough meet, pressing firmly to join so that they do not open when getting baked and spill out the filling. Brush each dough ball with some olive oil or any cooking oil.

Dough Balls ready for Baking

Keep all the dough balls on a greased baking tray or tray lined with butter paper and put in the oven that is preheated to 200 deg C and bake for about 30-45 min, or until they are baked to perfection. The baking time would depend upon the size of the dough balls made. One can apply Olive oil again after they are half baked, this ensures they do not look dry. I applied oil after the baking was complete.

Baking in process

Vegetarian Dough Balls with the dip.

I served these baked delights with an oil dip. Recipe of the dip will be my next post, do visit again and check it out and leave your thoughts about the posts.

Have fun baking and enjoy these warm comforting vegetarian snacks and spread the happiness to your family members.

ashu