Paneer Pakoda

Too much health food worrying all of you at The Singing Chef? I now bring you a plate of home made paneer pakodas. These are technically bajjis, but paneer is not native to bajjis' hometown, so using musical's reasoning below, I will call these paneer pakodas. (Not pakoras, mind you!)

Oh Raaga, and about pakodas vs. bhajiyas or bajjis, that was really cute, i know that situation :).In Punjabi atleast pakodas is a generic name for both of them, and certain combos have to be pakodas, like say onion or spinach, really crispy! Stuff like cauliflower can be used to make both and veggies like eggplants, potatoes, mirchis etc only for the softer bhajjis. One just specifies karare (this term means kara+crispy) or polle (soft). In several Punju dialects bhajiya or bhujiya would refer to stir fries! Like aloo bhujiya, meaning aloo chopped fine and stir fried with jeera and coriander leaves.

Paneer is the vegetarian's meat. Or so I'd like to believe. Any dish that earned fame as a non vegetarian dish immediately gets reincarnated as a paneer dish. And so was born Paneer Butter Masala. I used to live in Gurgaon in the late 90s. My uncle and aunt were visiting me from Bangalore and I had made a nice meal including some puliyodarai and bisi bele bhat. My landlady had told me that she loved tamarind rice and had devoured it each time she visited her sister in law in Bangalore. So, after my uncle and aunt left, I took some over to her place. I laugh even today at the conversation that followed:

Aunty: Aapke mausa mausi aaye the? (Had your uncle and aunt visited?)

Me: Haan ji (Yes)

Aunty: Yehi sab khilaya unko? (You fed them these things?)

Me: Haan ji. Mixie ke bagair zyada nahin bana pati. (Yes. Without a mixie, I find it tough to make much.)

Aunty: Non veg nahin banaya? (You didn't make non-veg?)

Me: Hum log khate nahin hain Aunty. (We don't eat it.)

Aunty: To paneer hi khila dete kam se kam. (So you should have at least fed them paneer.)

Me: Hamare khane mein paneer dalta nahin hain. (Paneer isn't a part of our cooking)

Aunty: Beta, yeh theek nahin kiya. Ghar aaye hue mehman ko aapne na non veg khilaya na paneer. Aapne unka bada insult kar diya. Paneer to khila hi dena tha. (You shouldn't have done this. You gave your guests neither non veg nor paneer. You have insulted them. Paneer should have been offered.)

And I thought, "Had I offered paneer with my BBB, that would have been more insulting to my aunt."

In any case, I was sick of paneer back then. I couldn't look it in the eye. But so many years later, I have changed. I can eat it, I can enjoy it and I can even rely on it coming to my rescue when all else has failed.

5 months after we moved in to this apartment, I finally found a milk supplier. And since I wasn't used to having milk delivered everyday, I'd gotten out of the habit of boiling it and storing it. One weekend, I found I had a surplus of 2.5 litres of milk. I quickly turned it into paneer by following Arundathi's instructions. I added about 2.5 tablespoons of lime juice to the milk just as it started to boil.

I hung this in a piece of cheesecloth and was left with these solids which turned into the lovely paneer below when I placed a heavy vessel over it.

I have made paneer before and have always been left with crumbs that I can only make bhurji with. I used toned (3%) milk and got this result. I am very happy. Thanks Arundathi.

I turned these into pakodas that we devoured the same night.

1 cup Paneer cubes

1/2 cup Gram Flour (Besan)

1/4 cup Rice Flour

1 tsp Cumin Seeds

1 tsp Chilli Powder

1/2 tsp Turmeric Powder

1/4 tsp Asafoetida

Salt to taste

1 tbsp Hot Oil

Oil for frying

Mix all the ingredients except the oil for frying and the paneer cubes together in a bowl. Add enough water to make a thick batter.

Heat oil in a kadhai or frying pan. Dip the paneer cubes in the batter and deep fry in the hot oil. Remove when the cubes are golden brown. Drain on a paper towel.

Put all the pakodas in a big bowl, keep your bottle of ketchup handy and get comfy in front of the TV. Eat like there is no tomorrow. Err, is there?