Mushroom Paneer Pesto Pasta

A quick pasta with paneer and a green pesto sauce made with cilantro as the main ingredient. I love to bring indian flavors into western dishes and try to create fusion recipes. This is one such recipe which turned out super delicious and is a keeper for our traditional taste buds :)

Ingredients

Serves - 2-3
Spice Level - Moderate
Prep Time - 20 min
Cook time - 15 min

Spaghetti - 200 gm
Olive oil - 2 tbsp
Garlic cloves  - 7-8 chopped finely
Mushroom - 6 chopped into medium size pieces
Paneer - 150 gm, cubed
salt - as required
Freshly ground pepper - as required

For the green pesto sauce

Blend all the below together with 2tbsp water and keep aside

Cilantro - 2 cups
Green chilli - 3
Cardamom powder - 1/4 tsp
Coriander powder - 1/4 tsp
Cumin powder - 1/2 tsp
Oilve oil - 2 tbsp
Garlic clove - 2
Salt - as required

How do you do it

1. Cook the spaghetti as per packet instruction in salted water with a couple of drops of oil, drain and wash under cold water and keep aside.

2. Blend all the ingredients for the cilantro sauce and keep aside.

3. Take a tawa and coat with a layer of oil. Toast the paneer pieces and keep aside.

4. Heat oil in a wok, add chopped garlic and saute till they brown slightly, add chopped mushroom and saute well. Cook mushroom until it gives a shiny gleam and all the water the mushroom let out dries. Add little salt and pepper.

5. Lower the flame and add the cooked sphagetti now amd saute for a couple of minutes until it absorbs all the flavour. Toss well.

6. Add 2 tbsp of the cilantro sauce and mix well. Remove pan from flame and check to see if more salt or pepper is needed. Add if required.

7. Add the toasted paneer finally and mix well. Paneer mushroom pasta is ready :)

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Hara Bhara Paneer Tikka | Coriander- Mint Grilled Cottage cheese

Anything to do with coriander, mint or garlic, we love it and my fridge never runs out of them. This super tongue tickling marinade made with these three aromatic herbs along with some other spices can be used in many ways. I have used the marinade for chicken tikkas, paneer tikkas or mix a few tsp of this with yogurt and you have the restaurant type green chutney that's on the table as a sauce for the tikka starters. This hara bhara chutney has a very addictive taste and its one of my favorite. I always ask for two cups of green chutney on my table at a restaurant right away because I know I would just drink loads of this one. 

When you are craving for something yummy or your evening weekend snack, you can whip this up in minutes, marinate chicken/tofu/paneer/fish or any other vegetable that you like for about 30 minutes, broil in the oven for about 10-15 minutes and you have a delicious appetizer ready for you.

Ingredients

Recipe Source - Adapted from Sanjeev Kapoors Tandoori cooking at home book

Serves - 3

Spice Level - Moderate

Prep time- 15 min + 30 min marination time

Cook time - 15 min

Paneer - 200 gm, cut into 1 inch cubes

Coriander leaves - 3 handful

Mint leaves - 1 handful

Garlic cloves - 5

Serrano peppers green - 2

Garam Masala - 1/2 tsp

Tandoori Masala - 1 tsp

Lemon juice - 1 tsp

Gram Flour/Besan - 1 Tbsp

Oil - 1 tsp

Yogurt - 1/2 cup

Salt - as required

How do you do it

1. Grind coriander leaves, mint leaves along with garlic and Serrano peppers to a coarse paste with little water.

2. Mix the above paste with yogurt. Add the spice powders, lemon juice, oil, besan and required salt to the yogurt and whisk well to get a smooth textured marinade.

3. Add the paneer cubes to the marinade, and wrap them well in it. Refrigerate for minimum 30 minutes.

4. Line a cookie baking sheet with aluminium foil and smear it with oil. Place the paneer pieces on it.

Broil on high in pre-heated oven for about 10-15 minutes or until the paneer starts to crisp and browns a little on top. Keep an eye on the oven when you broil. Broiling for too long will toughen the paneer and it wouldnt taste good.

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Kuska Rice

Do you run out of vegetables once in a while and wonder what you could do to ruffle up for a quick lunch?  This happens now and then in my kitchen, I would not have any veggies and be in a dilemma on what to cook. So here is something that is easy, quick and very comforting. Kuska Rice is a mildly flavored biryani rice made with just onions, tomatoes, some herbs and coconut milk. This is traditional Muslim Ramadan food, and they add the chicken mix to this kuska rice to make chicken biryani.

Kuska Rice

Ingredients

Recipe modified from here
 
Serves - 2
Spice Level - Mild and Flavorful
Prep Time - 15 min
Cook time - 15 min

Basmati Rice - 1 cup
Water - 1.25 cups
Coconut milk - 1/4 cup
Ghee - 1 Tbsp
Cardamom - 2
Cloves - 2
Bay leaf - 1
Cinnamon - 1 inch stick
Oil - 1 Tbsp
Onion - 1 , chopped finely
Tomato - 1 , chopped finely
Ginger-Garlic paste - 1 Tsp
Salt - as per need

To grind to a paste

Mint Leaves - a handful
Coriander Leaves - a handful
Green chilli -2


How do you do it

1. Firstly soak the biryani rice in water for 10 minutes. Once done, drain and keep aside.

2. Grind the ingredients under "to grind to a paste"  with little water and keep aside.

3. Heat ghee in a kadai, add bay-leaf,cardamom,cloves,cinnamon and saute for 30 sec. Add the rice now and saute until you get a nice aroma, for 2 minutes. Once done transfer to the rice cooker vessel.

4. Heat oil in a kadai. Add the chopped onion , GG paste and saute till onions are translucent. Add tomatoes now and saute until they become mushy and are cooked well. Now add in the ground paste, little salt and saute for few minutes until the raw smell of the paste vanishes. Transfer this to the rice cooker vessel and mix well with rice.

5. Add 1.25 cups of water and 1/4 cup coconut milk to the rice vessel, add required salt and mix well. The correct amount of salt needed while cooking any variety rice is such that you should be able to taste the salt in the water a little more than the proper level. Cook this rice for 12-15 minutes. Flavourful Kuska rice is ready.

We had kuska rice with a gobi manchurian and cucumber raitha.

 

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Coriander Chutney/Kothamalli Thuvayal

Kothmalli thuvayal is one of our favorites, and we usually have this with ghee rice along with a nice gravy or with idli/dosai.It feels so comforting  when its mixed with curd rice especially . Its one of my "lick off the plate completely" food. :)

Coriander Chutney

Ingredients

Spice Level - Medium
Serves - 3

Coriander Leaves - 1 bunch - washed and picked.
Onion - 2  Medium, chopped roughly
Jeera - 1 tsp
Saunf - 1 Tsp
Garlic cloves - 5
Tamarind - size of quarter of a lemon
Green chilli - 3-4 
Grated Coconut - 4 Tbsp
Mustard - 1 tsp
Urad dal - 1 tsp
Oil - 2tbsn
Water - 1/2 cup
Salt - as per taste

Method

Heat a pan with oil. Add mustard and when it splutters, add urad dal, jeera and saunf - let it roast. Throw in the onion, garlic,green chilli and saute them. Saute till the onions are translucent.Now add the tamarind, grated coconut, saute for a min.Add coriander leaves and saute till the raw smell of the leaves vanish.Switch off flame.

Cool the mixture and blend with 1/2 cup water to get a smooth paste. Transfer to a bowl ,add salt and mix.Eat happily along with ghee rice and vadagam like me or with Egg Dosai,how S likes to have it. :)

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