Madhu Knits and Cooks

Recipe, knitting, and sewing project notes

Tag: Cooking — Indian Recipes

  • Another Attempt at Palak Makai (Indian Spinach with Corn)

    Earlier this year, I tried my hand at an internet-based recipe for Palak Makai, or Indian-spiced Spinach with Corn.  Unfortunately, as I described in my post about that effort, it was a bit of a disaster — bland and unhealthy, a fairly unappealing combination.  As the crop of summer corn was winding down several weeks back, I decided to give this dish another try, but this time by utilizing some fresh spinach from the farmers' market and improvising the spices used based on what I use in Mutter Paneer/Mutter Tofu.  The spinach dish turned out far better than the initial attempt — however, I think I ended up with the opposite issue, which was the dish was a little too spiced!  I think I will make it again, but this time by halving the spice amounts used in the recipe directions below.

    Palak Makai Second Round
    Palak Makai (v.2)

    Ingredients:

    • 1/2 tsp. ground cardamon
    • 1/2 tsp dried fenugreek leaves
    • 1/2 tsp. paprika
    • 1/2 tsp. cayenne
    • 1/4 tsp. ground cumin
    • 1/4 tsp. ground coriander
    • 2 tsp. ginger garlic paste
    • 1 1/4 tsp. chopped jalapeno
    • 1/2 cup chopped onion
    • 1 tbsp. chopped cilantro
    • 2 3/4 cup fresh spinach leaves, washed
    • 1 1/4 cups cooked corn kernels (from approx. 2 cobs or use frozen kernels)
    • 1 1/2 tbsp. sour cream
    • salt
    • water
    • vegetable oil

    Directions:

    • Heat 1 1/2 tablespoons of vegetable oil on medium-high heat in a large saucepan.
    • Add cardamon and let cook for 15 – 30 seconds or until fragrant, and then add ginger-garlic paste and fenugreek leaves.  Saute for 1 minute.
    • Mix in chopped onion and jalapeno and cook until the onion is translucent.
    • Then add paprika, cayenne, cumin, and coriander.  Saute for 10 – 15 seconds, coating the onion with the spices, and then add 1/4 cup water and cilantro.  
    • After mixture starts to simmer (just a few minutes), add the spinach leaves and cook the pan covered until spinach is wilted.
    • Remove pan from heat, and place mixture in a blender.  Blend until mixture is smooth.
    • Place spinach mixture back in saucepan, and increase heat to medium.  Add the sour cream, and salt to taste, and bring the mixture to a boil, while stirring constantly.
    • Add the cooked corn to the pan, cover and cook for 2 – 3 minutes, adding additional salt as necessary.
    • Remove from heat and serve!

  • NY Times Roasted Beets with Chiles, Ginger, Yogurt and Indian Spices

    So unlike most of my cooking experiments, this dish did not result from either purchasing a set of ingredients and then determining how to prepare them or deliberatively searching for a recipe and then purchasing the required ingredients.  Instead, I just happened to click on the link for this recipe and then decided it looked good enough to try the next time I went to the market.  

    As you may recall, two years ago I joined a CSA and was suddenly flush with beets.  Seriously, as I think back to that summer, I feel like the only items I ever got from the CSA all summer were beets and Japanese turnips.  Unfortunately, I never got that creative with preparing the beets — I would roast them and include them in various dishes, slice them with a mandoline and make beet chips (never could get the baking process right though), or just throw them away.  At some point, you can really just get "beet" dealing with this root vegetable (pun intended!).

    So when I saw this NYTimes.com recipe that prepared the beets with Indian spices, I was intrigued.  For some unknown reason, I had completely ignored using my Indian spices with beets in the past, and this recipe was almost too good to be true — simple, used ingredients easily accessible in my pantry, and spicy.  I picked up some yellow beets at the farmer's market, and as I thought, put the dish together with ease.  The result was really great — well-spiced, healthy, and the yogurt sauce was really amazing and could go well with a number of dishes.  The only alterations I made were to omit the lime juice from the yogurt because I just didn't have a lime, and to increase the cooking time for the beets by another ten minutes or so despite cutting the beets smaller than what the recipe called for.  I think the next time I prepare this recipe, I will cover the beet chunks with foil while they roast because the prepared beets were a little drier than I would have liked.  I will also continue to cut the beet pieces smaller than the one-inch chunks called for in the original recipe because I felt I had a good spice-to-beet ratio in each bite.

    Roasted Beets with Spices

  • Two New Indian Dishes That Need a Little Work — Indian Chinese Fried Rice and Leek Pappu

    Every now and again, it's good to remind myself why I have this blog.  I have to admit that I maintain this blog not just for your readership and comments (though those aspects are certainly appreciated), but rather to remind myself of what I have made in the past, what worked and didn't, and to basically tell myself what I should and should not make in the future.  This post is an excellent reminder of why this blog has been so helpful to me over the years — I know that if I didn't memorialize these new recipe attempts, I would probably repeat the same mistakes in just a few months.  

    One of these dishes — Indian Chinese fried rice — I have wanted to make at home for some time.  The other dish — leeks with moong dal or leek pappu — I decided to make out because I had more leeks in the fridge than I knew what to do with.  Unfortunately, both turned out to bland and will require significant modifications to make them worth making again in the future.  The fried rice just tasted like lightly flavored vegetables and rice, and the leek pappu tasted like…well, leeks and pappu.  The details on each unsuccessful recipe attempt follow the dishes' respective pictures.

    Indian Chinese Fried Rice
    Indian Chinese Fried Rice

    I adapted this recipe from a few different sources on the internet.  I tried to focus on the ingredients I had at home though, and to try to really enhance the flavors through using more different types, and greater quantities of, flavor-enhancers than the internet recipes included.  The smells that emanated from the pan after adding all of the aromatics together was quite enticing, and I think the ultimate problem may have been using too much rice in the dish, which of course diluted the flavors.  It is interesting to note though that I generally used far less rice than the recipes I found on the internet, so I really wonder how so many Indian blogs can recommend what must really be incredibly bland recipes.  In any case, here is a quick summary of what I did:

    Ingredients:

    • 2 tbsps. vegetable oil
    • 4 cloves garlic, minced
    • 2 tsps. minced fresh ginger
    • 1/4  onion, chopped or approx. 1/2 cup chopped onion
    • 1 red pepper, coarsely chopped
    • 1 large carrot, diced
    • 1 cup shredded cabbage
    • 1 – 2 tbsps. soy sauce
    • Approx. 3 cups cooked rice
    • Chopped scallions for garnish (optional)

    Directions:

    • Heat vegetable oil in a large pan, and add garlic and ginger, sauteeing on medium-high heat for 2 – 3 minutes
    • Add onion, and saute until onion is translucent
    • Add red pepper and carrot, and saute vegetables, covered, for 5 minutes or until softened
    • Add cabbage and cook an additional 3 minutes or until cabbage is cooked until taste (I prefer my cabbage to have a bit of crunch)
    • Finally, stir in the cooked rice and soy sauce and mix ingredients well until combined and hot.

    Leek Pappu

    Leek Pappu

    Ingredients:

    • 3/4 cup moong dal
    • 1/4 tsp. turmeric
    • 1/2 tsp. mustard seeds
    • 1/2 tsp. cumin
    • 2 dried red chilis, broken in half
    • 1 clove garlic, coarsely chopped
    • 1 medium leek, white and light green parts thinly sliced
    • vegetable oil
    • water
    • salt

    Directions:

    • Combine dal and 1.5 cups water in a medium pot, and bring to a boil on medium-high heat.  
    • When boiling, reduce heat to a simmer, add turmeric to pot, stir and cover.  Cook approximately 20 minutes or until dal is tender, adding more water as necessary.  
    • In a seperate small fry pan, heat a small amount of vegetable oil on medium heat.  Add mustard seeds, and when they start to pop, add other spices, and cook until garlic is fragrant.
    • Add the leeks, and continue to cook on medium heat until the leeks are tender – add water if necessary to ensure leeks do not stick to pan.
    • Once leeks are cooked to your taste, add the leek and spice mixture to the dal, stirring well.  Salt to taste and serve.

  • Two New Indian Dishes — Vegetarian Times Kichdi with Cauliflower and Peas, and Palak Makai from a Popular Restaurant Chef

    I have been pretty busy with work lately, so trips to the grocery store have become less frequent the past several weeks.  Instead of eating out more, which has typically been my default, I have tried to use this busy time to actually use up those items sitting in my pantry, fridge, and freezer for some time.  I have surprised myself by actually being largely successful, so much so that I found myself needing to go to the grocery store to again stock up on some of those necessary staples!  

    My first attempt at using up what I have without buying additional ingredients focused on two new Indian dishes.  The first was a January 2009 Vegetarian Times recipe for Kitchari with Cauliflower and Peas, an Indian rice and lentil dish.  The second was a Palak Makai recipe on Sudhir Seth's blog (the chef/owner of Passage to India, a popular Indian restaurant in Bethesda, MD) that relied on frozen spinach and corn, two items I knew were in my freezer.

    Both recipes were relatively painless to construct — the kitchari in particular requires almost no active preparation time (most of the cooking is just done over a simmer in the pot).  The palak makai mostly just relies on sauteing the spinach and one only needs to chop garlic for the dish (minimal chopping recipes are such a nice change of pace!).  

    I may have over-sauteed the palak makai as the spinach was a bit dry upon completion and unfortunately was also fairly bland.  I don't think I'll make the dish again given that it was both not particularly tasty and not that healthy (the recipe calls for a generous amount of butter and cream).  Somehow though through the week, I ended up eating all six servings by myself given the lack of other easy-to-consume food in my apartment.  

    Palak Makai 

    The kitchari/kichdi turned out WONDERFULLY, such that I actually made it another 3 – 4 times over the next few weeks.  I halved the recipe the first two times I made it, though kept the ginger and cumin levels as the recipe originally stated.  The dish cooked up in about 15 minutes or so, making it the perfect quick meal.  The most recent times I made it, I made the full recipe which definitely increased the cooking time to approximately 30 – 35 minutes, and I did not adjust the spice blend upwards which made the dish less mouthwatering.  When the ginger and cumin were enhanced in the first two half-servings, the dish tasted almost like pongal, a South Indian rice/lentil dish that I grew up eating.  I think that variations of kichdi/pongal will become a frequent meal in my apartment in the months and years to come given how easy and delicious this Vegetarian Times recipe was!  I would definitely recommend this recipe as the must-try Indian recipe of the year.

    Kitchari with Cauliflower and Peas

  • “Tandoori” Tofu

    I don't really eat tofu that often anymore.  Tofu used to be a pretty large part of my homecooking, but I've really tried to take heed of the advice by Michael Pollan and others that we focus more on vegetables, beans and whole grains given how much soy we already consume through processed foods.  I recently though came across this "Tandoori Tofu" recipe by EatingWell.com, and thought it would be a great way to try a new, more interesting way to prepare tofu than the standard stir-fry.  The dish turned out wonderfully well — nicely spiced, good consistency and diversity of flavors in each bite (the key was the lime juice!).  I look forward to making it every few months — with of course, the interim periods focused on plants!  The modifications I made to the recipe follow the picture of the tandoori tofu over rice.

    Tandoori Tofu

    I was only cooking for one, so I used only one block of tofu in the recipe (instead of two) and retained the spice mixture as is.  I thought the recipe was probably geared to those who are not used to Indian cuisine, and I didn't want to end up with a bland dish.  I did not prepare the yogurt garnish, and substituted 1 tablespoon of prepared ginger-garlic paste instead of the 1 tablespoon of minced garlic.  

    I thought that the resulting dish was not overly spiced if you are used to Indian flavors — if you are somewhat new to Indian food, or otherwise easily overpowered by spices, I would recommend following the original recipe as is.  

    Finally, I also just prepared the dish in a saute pan over the stovetop instead of a grill.  I cut the tofu into smaller pieces than what was called for in the recipe because I knew that bypassing the grill would extend the cooking time of the dish.  I cooked the tofu in the saute pan until the pieces were very lightly browned on each side — approximately 10 minutes.

  • An Easy Chole (Indian Chickpea) Recipe

    Its funny to suddenly crave a food that you haven't really been that fond of in the past.  That recently happened to me when I started thinking about chole, an Indian chickpea dish.  Although I have eaten plenty of chole in the past, I don't think its ever really counted as one of my favorites.  I decided to satisfy this newfound desire by buying a can of chickpeas at the supermarket (instead of paying $10 for this dish as nearby restaurants!), and looking around my apartment and the Internet for recipes.  I couldn't find anything that really would work with the ingredients in my house, so I decided to improvise a bit based on my of my latest experiments with North Indian cooking. 

    The recipe I came up with was definitely what I was looking for — spicy and substantive.  And because I enjoyed the leftovers so much, I decided to make the recipe again just week or two after the first attempt.  I definitely encourage to try this recipe, though some may need to down (or up) the spice based on preference.

    Chole

    Ingredients

    • 1 can chickpeas, very lightly washed and partially drained
    • 1 tsp. cumin seeds
    • 1 tsp. ground coriander
    • 2 tsp. prepared ginger garlic paste (or mince equal parts ginger and garlic to reach this amount)
    • 1 medium onion, chopped
    • 2 thai green chili peppers (or substitute other hot peppers), coarsely chopped
    • 1 1/2 medium-sized tomatoes, coarsely chopped
    • 1/2 tsp. turmeric
    • 1/2 tsp. garam masala
    • 1/2 tsp. chili powder
    • salt
    • vegetable oil

    Directions

    • Heat in a medium pot 1 – 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil and add cumin and coriander, stirring lightly and cooking until fragrant (maybe 30 seconds – 1 minute).
    • Add ginger garlic paste, chopped onion and hot peppers and saute for 2 – 3 minutes until the onion is translucent.
    • Stir in the tomatoes, turmeric and garam masala, and cook the mixture until the tomatoes reduce in volume and break down (3 – 4 minutes)
    • Stir in chickpeas, with some of the water from the washing, and 1/2 tsp. salt.  Coat the chickpeas with the onion, tomato and spice mixture.
    • Cover, and stir periodically.  Add water if necessary to ensure the mixture isn't sticking to the pot.  Cook for 20 minutes or until chickpeas are hot and absorb the flavors of the spice mixture.  Finish by adding the chili powder and salt to taste.

  • A Successful First Attempt at Pappu Charu, a Family and Regional Favorite

    In addition to Cottage Cheese Pakoras and Bendakaya, one of my favorite Indian dishes is Pappu Charu, an absolutely wonderful lentil and vegetable stew.  During a not-so-recent trip home, my mother finally taught me how to make pappu charu, but of course it took me several months to work up the courage to actually try it myself (even my mother has admitted messing up pappu charu from time to time).  I am definitely happy that I finally got over this insecurity, particularly because I was able to declare my first charu adventure a success!  The winter months are certainly looking much more appealing with more hot pappu charu to keep me warm and satisfied!  The recipe details follow the picture of a steaming serving of pappu charu, served over white rice.

    Pappu Charu

    Ingredients (for approximately 4 servings)

    • 1/2 cup toor dal (available in any Indian store), well rinsed through
    • 1 cup baby carrots, halved
    • 2 serrano peppers, coarsely chopped (adjust hot peppers to taste)
    • 1/2 – 3/4 small onion, coarsely chopped
    • 1 white radish, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
    • 1 tomato, coarsely chopped (into approx. 8 large pieces)
    • 1/4 – 1/2 tsp. tamarind concentrate paste (available in any Indian store)
    • 1/4 cup chopped cilantro
    • 1 clove garlic, sliced
    • 1/2 tsp. mustard seeds
    • 1/2 tsp. cumin seeds
    • 3 dried red chili peppers (available in any Indian store)
    • 2 curry leaves (available in any Indian store)
    • 1/2 tsp. chili powder
    • Pinch of hing (also known as asafoetida, available in any Indian store) (optional)
    • Vegetable oil
    • Salt

    Directions

    • Combine toor dal and 1 cup water in a medium pot, and bring to a boil on medium-high heat.
    • When mixture starts to boil, reduce heat to a lower simmer and cover.  Cook for 20 minutes, and stir occasionally.
    • As dal is cooking, place carrots, hot peppers, onion, and radish in a microwave safe bowl with a few tablespoons of water.  Cover and place in the microwave for 4 minutes (until vegetables are tender, and approx. 3/4 cooked through).
    • Add 1/2 cup water and 1/8 tsp. salt to the dal, stir, cover, and cook for another 10 minutes until tender.  Once dal is tender, turn off heat and lightly mash dal in pot with any thicker spatula (non-metal as to not scrape the pan) or masher. 
    • Place vegetables, including the water that they were microwaved with, into the dal pot, and add tomato as well.  Bring heat to medium to bring mixture to a boil again.  
    • Once mixture reaches a boil, add tamarind paste, starting with 1/4 tsp.  Taste the mixture after adding the first 1/4 tsp. to ensure that the charu isn't getting too sweet.  Continue adding until the desired taste is reached, being careful not to use too much tamarind concentrate.  Continue a light boil for 5 additional minutes, and add water as necessary to ensure a stew or soup-like consistency (whatever your preference).  Add cilantro for the last few minutes of cooking.
    • At the same time, in a small saucepan, heat 1/2 tsp. vegetable oil on medium-high heat.  Once the oil heats up, add mustard seeds.  Once the mustard seeds start to pop, add cumin, curry leaves, and hing, turning off heat and stirring in the chili peppers, chili powder and garlic for another minute.  
    • Pour contents of the saucepan into the charu, and stir.  Add salt to taste, starting with 1/2 tsp.  Turn off heat.  

    I recommend serving the pappu charu as a compliment to any Indian meal, or on its own as a light meal with some cooked rice.

  • Flavorful Masoor Dal and a New Indian Okra Dish

    Two new Indian recipes to share with everyone!  Both are incredibly simple (so much so that I'm sure most Indians won't find them interesting at all) but at least for me, they add in some new dishes into my usual Indian rotation.  The first is a new dal recipe, using masoor dal, which is a faster-cooking lentil than the moong dal and toor dal that I generally use.  The second is a new okra dish, a variation of the bhindi masala entrees that you have probably seen and/or tried at North Indian restaurants.  I generally make a dry okra dish that is basically just fresh okra sauteed with spices, but I wanted to mix things up a bit and get more of a soft-okra-in-light-sauce dish that I thought might be a good way to use frozen okra.  I would highly recommend the masoor dal recipe everyone to replicate, but I think the okra dish might need a little work — perhaps one or two more ingredients, as well as figuring out how to make frozen okra less sticky!  The recipes and directions follow the respective pictures.

    Masoor Dal

    Ingredients

    • 3/4 cup masoor dal (available at all Indian stores), washed
    • 1/2 tsp turmeric
    • 1/2 serrano pepper, chopped (adjust to taste)
    • 1 clove garlic, minced
    • 3/4 tsp mustard seeds
    • 2 dried red chilis (available at all Indian stores), broken in half
    • vegetable oil
    • salt
    • water

    Directions

    • Combine the washed masoor dal and 1.5 cups of water in a small pot, and bring to a boil
    • Once the contents of the pot are boiling, add turmeric, serrano pepper, garlic, and 1 tsp salt; stir; reduce heat to a simmer; and cover.  Add 1/4 cup of water if necessary (you want to ensure that the dal doesn't burn while cooking because of a lack of water).  Continue cooking until dal is tender — in total, this process should take 10 – 15 minutes.
    • In a small saucepan, heat 1 tsp of vegetable oil on medium heat.  When hot, add the mustard seeds and dried red chilis.  When the mustard seeds start to pop, turn off the heat, and add to the cooked dal.  
    • Turn off heat for the pot, add additional salt to taste, and serve immediately.

    Bhindi Masala

    Ingredients

    • 1 bag of frozen okra
    • 1 tsp mustard seeds
    • 1 tsp cumin
    • 1/2 tsp urad dal
    • 2 dried red chilis, broken in half
    • 1/2 serrano pepper, chopped (adjust to taste)
    • 3 cloves garlic, sliced
    • 1 tsp chopped ginger
    • 1/2 of a small onion, chopped
    • vegetable oil
    • salt
    • water

    Directions

    • Place okra in a microwave-safe bowl, add 1/4 cup of water, cover, and place the covered bowl in the microwave.  Microwave the okra for 4 minutes at the standard high heat setting.  Remove from microwave, drain water, and set aside.
    • In a large saucepan, heat 2 tsps of vegetable oil on medium-high heat.  When hot, add mustard seeds.  When the mustard seeds start popping, add cumin, urad dal, and dried red chili peppers and saute until mixture is fragrant (approx. 30 sec. to one minute).  
    • Then add garlic, ginger, and serrano pepper, and saute for one minute.  Add the onion and saute until the onion is translucent.
    • Add the okra, turning up heat.  Cook for approximately 5 minutes until the okra is hot, and add salt to taste (lean to the liberal side).  Be careful to not overcook the okra.  As frozen okra becomes overcooked, the bright green flavor starts to fade (note this is different from how fresh okra cooks). 

    In terms of the additional ingredients I would add to this okra dish, I would consider adding a diced tomato or two when the onion is cooking as well as some amchoor powder toward the end to add a bit of diversity to the flavor.  I am also interested in experimenting more with fennel seeds, but I am not quite sure if they would work with this dish.  Keep posted for more variations of this recipe!

  • Trio of New Indian Dishes

    I think I've been in an Indian food rut of late, having run through the handful of Indian vegetarian recipes I usually make a few times over the past couple of weeks.  This newfound desire to try out some new recipes, particularly North Indian recipes, thankfully came at the same time as the closing sale at a local Borders (20% off the entire store!).  I spent a good chunk of time one afternoon browsing the cookbook section, and settled on Julie Sahni's Classic Indian Cooking and Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian.  

    When I had a friend over for dinner recently, I tried one new recipe from each of these cookbooks, as well as, for the first time. an childhood favorite — Spinach Rice — from Saranya Mandava's newer cookbook, Millennium Mixture.

    Trio of New Indian Dishes 

    Unfortunately, the results was a bit mixed.  The first dish I made was Julie Sahni's Potatoes Smothered in Shallots (link is to a website that reproduces the recipe).  I substituted new potatoes for the standard potatoes called for in the recipe, but other than that, followed the fairly simple recipe as is.  In addition to potatoes and shallots, the recipe calls for only salt and pepper.  I should have realized that that simplicity would mean an incredibly bland result (think plain potatoes with salt and pepper, and just a hit of shallots), but unfortunately I didn't and so missed the opportunity to make it more flavorful.  Oh well.  Flipping through the rest of Sahni's book, I think the other dishes will be equally as bland so I will probably just use the recipes as bases for new experiments.  

    The other two dishes turned out really well, and I am really happy I decided to pick up the Madhur Jaffrey compilation book, which has a ton of interesting-looking recipes.  I tried her Green Beans with Cumin and Fennel recipe, particularly because I have never cooked with fennel seeds.  I really enjoyed the multi-layered flavor they brought to the final dish — so much so, that that following week, I made the recipe again!  To add an interesting starch to the meal, I cooked the Spinach Rice recipe from Millennium Mixture, which was an exact replica of one of my favorite childhood dishes (spinach rice with some plain yogurt was a complete, and satisfying, meal for me for many years).  As the dish was simmering, the smells emanating from the kitchen actually reminded me of my childhood.  Thankfully, I didn't mess up the result, and I'm definitely going to be adding both recipes to my regular cooking rotation!

  • Mutter Tofu

    In 2006, I learned how to make Mutter Paneer, a popular North Indian dish.  Someone commented on a related post that they had successfully attempted the recipe, and had substituted tofu in place of paneer.  That comment has stuck with me the past few years, and when I finally decided to try this recipe myself, I decided to use tofu as well instead of the traditional paneer.  I also adapted the recipe to what I had in my kitchen — which slightly deviates from the original recipe.  Below the picture, I detail what I did to make the dish, what I would change in the future, and how this more simple approach differs from the original recipe — which I still think is probably the gold standard for mutter paneer.  

    Mutter Tofu 

    Ingredients (for approximately 4 servings)

    1 teaspoon ground cardamom (I would reduce this to 1/2 tsp. moving forward, especially because I freshly ground cardamon seeds)

    Vegetable cooking oil 

    2 teaspoons store-bought ginger garlic paste (in place of homemade paste)

    1/4 teaspoon fenugreek seeds (in place of dry fenugreek)

    1 medium onion chopped

    1 ½ medium tomatoes, chopped and microwaved for 2-3 minutes 

    1 teaspoon paprika

    1 teaspoon cayenne pepper

    1 teaspoon roasted ground cumin 

    1/2 teaspoon roasted ground coriander (in place of 1 tsp. in original recipe — I may decrease in the future)

    1 tablespoon chopped cilantro

    1 green chile, sliced

    2 tablespoons sour cream

    1 teaspoon salt

    ½ teaspoon store-bought masala (in place of homemade masala)

    1 block extra firm tofu, squeezed dry and cut into 3/4 inch square pieces (I would recommend making them 1/2 inch square pieces instead)

    3/4 cup frozen peas


    Directions (I basically followed the original recipe, except for separate cooking of the tofu)


    -Heat oil in saucepan (medium heat, depending on quality of pan)

    -Add ground cardamom

    -Add garlic/ginger paste, let simmer for a few minutes

    -Add dried fenugreek and chopped onion

    -Let simmer 5-10 minutes, or until the onions don’t smell raw

    – At the same time, heat 1 teaspoon of vegetable oil in another pan on medium-high heat.  Add tofu, and saute, stirring occasionally, until the tofu is lightly browned on all sides or the desired consistency is reached. 

    -Cut the tomatoes, and then put in microwave for 2-3 minutes

    -Add paprika, cayenne, cumin, and coriander

    -Add water if the ingredients are sticking to the pan (I would add about 1/4 – 3/4 cup of water)

    -Add cilantro

    -Add chopped tomatoes, and lower the heat a bit

    -Let simmer so flavors blend (few minutes)

    -Then put i
    n a food processor, until consistency is like gravy

    -Put back in pan, and add salt to taste

    -Add 2 tablespoons of sour cream.  Turn up heat and stir vigorously until mixture bubbles

    -Keep stirring after bubbling and add homemade masala

    -Then add peas, stir and cover, lower heat to medium/low.

    -Stir periodically and add water if looks dry (maybe another 1/4 cup).  Let simmer for 10 minutes.

    -Uncover and stir in tofu, and let simmer for 3-4 minutes for flavor to set in paneer.


    Potential Further Alterations


    The recipe turned out incredibly well, though I think that there are three key changes I would consider making.  First, as I describe above in the ingredients section, I would reduce the cardamon to 1/2 teaspoon instead of 1 teaspoon.  I think the end result had a little too much cardamon flavor — potentially because I freshly ground the cardamon — and that made the dish a bit sweet.  Second, I would recommend cutting the tofu into smaller pieces.  I usually cut my tofu to about 3/4 inch square pieces when I stir fry them with vegetables, but I would that size is too big to get the tofu properly flavored in this gravy dish.  I think that a 1/2 inch square size would probably work better for this recipe.  Finally, I would add more water to the recipe as I detail in the directions section.  I added perhaps only 1/4 cup of water through the cooking process, and the leftovers were somewhat dry, so I would probably add approximately 1/2 – 3/4 cup through the cooking process.  I don't think that extra water would undesirably dilute the flavor.


    I'll report back if I try these alterations in the future!