Paneer Lababdar

'Lababdar' is a Hindi word meaning strong craving for a food. The recipe I am going to post today is of Paneer Lababdar, which is one of the popular restaurant style paneer preparations in northern India. Indeed, the exquisite taste of a lababdar preparation rich with creamy buttery gravy makes one experience seventh heaven at every morsel. Please leave a comment below if you try it out at home. 

Please don't forget to check out the recipes of other delicacies in this blog:

Chicken Lababdar
Paneer Fried Rice
Paneer Malai Kofta
Paneer Bhapa - Steamed Paneer
Paneer La Jabab
Palak Paneer

Paneer Malai Kofta

I have cooked Paneer Malai Kofta so many times by now that it has become pretty staple in my home. The last time I cooked this dish is very recently for an office potluck party of my husband. The dish turned out to be a smash hit with everyone licking their fingers. One colleague went to the extent of asking the name of restaurant where this paneer dish would be available and my husband delightfully replied "at my home".

I collected the recipe from an online cooking forum I am a member of. I tweaked the recipe slightly to suit my flavor and the outcome was genius. Here I am sharing the same with you. Hopefully you all will like it.

Chanar Dalna - Paneer Dalna

Yesterday we took our newborn to his first long car ride of approximate 3 and half hours. He has completed two months last Saturday, and taking the liberty of his soon to be out of newborn status, I thought of taking him to a shopping mall in which I had few garments, that I ordered for him, for pick-up. He was calm and quiet throughout the long journey. On our way back, however, as we were approaching our home, he grew a bit impatient letting out an occasional whimper of irritation, but otherwise he just totally cooperated. Though I am not fond of the idea of travelling long distance with a small baby, I have seen people going on international journeys with small kids. I have a friend who came all the way from India to USA with his 3 months old baby all alone, and I know of her experience of hell when my friend could not eat, nap or use the loo throughout the flight as the baby was immensely fussy wailing his heart out . My friend is brave, but I am not. Hence, despite a wonderful summer of USA tempting me to take a trip, with all my friends travelling here and there, reveling in the warmth of such nice weather, I am not at all letting my mind walk in that track. I would like to wait for a while till I know that my son is safe for a long distance trip.
 

Anyway, Chanar dalna originally is the preparation in which fresh chana i.e the paneer, which is left after the whey water of milk is discarded, is used. Since the process of separating milk from the whey is a bit time-taking process and since I am little short of time these days, readymade paneer is always the best option for me while preparing this dish. So it is up to your discretion whether you want to use fresh paneer or the readymade one.

Paneer Bhapa - Steamed Paneer

Sorry Friends. Lately I have got little busy with my freelancing projects and hence my posts are not as frequent as were earlier, but thanks for your patience. Today I am going to post one of my favorite paneer preparations. It is my favorite not because it is very tasty, but because it is very hassle free.
 

Paneer Bhapa is a dry paneer curry cooked through steaming. If you have a steamer at home, you may use that to get this dish right or else you may follow the traditional technique of steaming, put all the ingredients together in a tiffin box tightly closed with a lid and then place the tiffin box inside a pressure cooker and pour 1/2 glass of water around the tiffin box to bring about steam. Now snap the lid of the pressure cooker in place and cook until 1 whistle. Don't open the lid immediately, let the pressure come down to room temperature and then open the lid. This paneer curry tastes best with rice, mainly because I have used mustard oil. I have seen my mother pouring raw mustard oil into the dish as final touch. The raw smell of mustard oil adds a pungent flavor to the dish which we Bengalis like. But you may cook the dish using white oil if you want to enjoy it with roti and as final touch, you may add ghee.

Cauliflower Paneer Potato Masala

Last few days have been quite busy for me, I couldn't manage any time out for my blog. Infact, there are dozens of recipes in the pipeline but due to time constraint, I am unable to upload them sooner. Anyway, about the following recipe, who doesn't like cauliflower!! I am yet to meet someone who doesn’t. During my childhood when I used to be a picky eater at that time too I simply drooled over cauliflower and my mother would make some nice cauliflower preparations including cauliflower pakoda, Aloo Phulkopir Dalna, Dry Cauliflower Curry and so on and so forth.

This one is, however, not my mother's recipe. I scouted the cyber world in search of good paneer recipes cooked with cauliflower as I had a huge cauliflower resting in the refrigerator for over a week, I came up with some nice paneer cauliflower concoction but none tickled my fancy. So I mixed and matched few ingredients here and there and came up with something suiting my family's taste bud. I know many people who are not fond of curry leaves, in that case drop handful of chopped coriander leaves into the curry for garnishing. The aroma would be simply invigorating!!

 

This curry, according to me, accompanies roti, naan or paratha best but yes, yes you can take it with good old rice too.

Paneer Chilli

Mackinac Island located in Michigan State is a picturesque place offering breathtaking views of Lake Huron and Lake Michigan. Hardly 4 hours distance from our place, we made the trip to Mackinac in Easter break this year. I envy people who have their cottages in the island. I imagine it must be a wonderful experience to live in an island blessed with such tranquil and serene natural beauty. I wish I had a house there where I could take a retreat at times escaping the monotony and drudgery of my day to day life. If anybody is interested in reading more about the island, you may view the following page: Mackinac Island Trip.

In Kolkata I used to make paneer chilli pretty often in the evening as snacks. It surprises me why I took so long to post the recipe of Paneer Chilli here; I guess I was too busy trying my hand on other unusual dishes of paneer that it skipped my notice. Anyway, better late than never. Enjoy!!

 

Mushroom Paneer Butter Masala

Cooking/baking mishap is a common phenomenon everyone cooking or baking in the kitchen must have encountered at least once (in my case pretty often) in their life. Sometimes out of unmindfulness we botch up a dish that we might have cooked umpteen times earlier by missing out on some key ingredients or blundering a crucial step. If while cooking, I enter a serious conversation with someone, chances of my forgetting something to add are ample with the final output turning awful in taste. Hence usually when I invite someone over to my place, I keep everything ready beforehand so as to avoid culinary disasters.

 

 

As if precautions are not all the time useful in keeping hazards away, sometimes, troubles come uninvited when a slight oversight in calculation can put a damper on all your efforts and hard work as it did happen yesterday while I set myself to baking a lemon pie. Read more:

I had a group of guests invited to our place yesterday over dinner. The invitees were all vegetarians, so the menu included an assortment of veg dishes, some of which won havoc appreciation from all. One of them is the Mushroom Paneer Butter Masala that I cooked being inspired by the recipe from http://madhurasrecipe.com/. I modified the sauté ingredients a bit, but that apart, everything remained same to what Madhura has described in her video.

 

 

Paneer Ka Chilla - Paneer Pancake

I had a great Saturday this weekend. We went to Columbus for a get together with my hubby's old friends, all from the same alma mater. It was a fun filled day spent amid food and talks with a crowd of Bengalis for company after a long time. The best part of the entire menu was the box of baklavas that caught my notice the very moment it was placed on the dining table. Usually I don't allow my husband to bring baklavas at home, simply for my inability to resist temptation at the very sight of them. So today, I indulged myself the unalloyed pleasure that each bite of baklava provides pretending to be ignorant of the calories involved, for one time. It was sinful totally :)
 

The recipe I am posting today is not of baklava by the way. It's of Paneer Ka Chilla that I recently learned from a friend. Chilla in English means pancake. Paneer pancake is quite versatile in preparation. You may toss various ingredients into it....egg, spinach, milk and semolina apart from the ingredients I have already touched upon. As I fancied, I pureed the tomatoes and mixed it into the batter, but in case if you prefer tomatoes in the filling, then chop them into bite size pieces and add them into the mixture for the same.

Paneer Fried Rice

I hate wasting food and I don't like to see anyone tossing away food that is in completely eatable state into the dustbin. In our home we were always taught not to waste food keeping in mind that so many people and children are in empty stomach because of their inability to meet the basic necessities of life. Before we got up from the dining table my mother always made sure that we polished off every crumb left on the platter. But not everyone is brought up the same away. Hence in a party or function when I see plates heaped with uneaten left overs are thrown into the garbage; it makes my heart cringe a bit. I wonder why some people love filling their plates with edibles beyond their eating capacity and then waste them. At least if they would have been discreet enough to take only the amount they could eat, lots of unnecessary wastage could be averted and the residue from the party could be used to feed some hungry mouths.

Recently in a party held at my home, I cooked this Paneer Fried Rice which won me brownie points from the guests. I love paneer and it often comes to my rescue when I need to entertain a group of people who are vegetarian. Any paneer preparation, say Paneer LaJabab, Shahi Paneer, Kadai Paneer or Matar Paneer are instantaneous hits among the invitees.

Kadai Paneer

Kadai Paneer reminds me of the occasion when I first paid a visit to my now sister in law's (my brother in law's wife) home to meet her. In India, bridegroom's family members are treated nothing short of VIPs at the potential bride's home. So we too received a warm welcome by the would-be bride's family who took utmost care not to leave out anything in their hospitality. A huge platter heaped with delicacies like a selection of gourmet sweets, luchi, Kosha mangsho and Kadai Paneer were served to us. Since besides my mother in law, everyone accompanying the groom was young in age, pressure was huge in the air from the bride's side to polish off the platter without a crumb left. I ate like a horse going beyond my usual eating capacity but couldn't sweep clean of all the things arranged on the plate.

I recall, of all the delicacies, the one that left an impression on my mind was kadai paneer. I never have had any paneer preparation as tasty as that one. It was scrumptious to say the least. The soft cubes of paneer immersed in a tomato based gravy just melts in your mouth. It tastes best with puri, luchi, paratha and chapati but can be a good supplement to rice too.

Matar Paneer

I have few recipes in the pipeline waiting to be uploaded. Matar Paneer is one of those from the collection. Matar Paneer is a popular North Indian curry with green peas and cottage cheese used as base ingredients bursting with wonderful flavours of tomato and cream based gravy. Each morsel of this dish combined with a piece of roti or mixed with the grains of rice caters to the exquisite sense of your palate. Indisputably, it is one of my all-time favourites among vegetarian dishes.

Palak Paneer

Do you like friends imitating you blindly?  I had a childhood buddy who was into this noisome habit of emulating whatever I would try to do and mind you, it's not at all interesting when friends try to copy your dressing or emulate things you are involved in. It just makes you feel that your friend is trying to get into a competition with you. It's irritating. It does not end in one thing, it just goes on from one thing to another. It spoils the spontaneity of the friendship. My friendship with my childhood friend did fall apart because of her constant nagging ways to compete me.

These friends will never waste a word in praise of you, but you can feel that whenever the next good thing you engage yourself with, they do the same. If you get into baking class, they will do the same. If you go for painting, you will find them waving at you from the last row of the painting class. If you buy a set of goggles, you will find another pair in their bags the next day. If you start writing poems or making any literary composition, next day you will find them attempting the same. But never will you see them passing any compliment to you.

I wonder why ideas don't pop into their nutty heads on their own. Why do they have to derive passion out of watching their friends do something? Passion is never developed by copying someone. It is there in your heart. Just because your friend, you might look up to or feel slightly jealous of, engages himself/herself with something, you don't necessarily be toeing the same line. Hobbies are not a place for competition. Hobbies are something followed out of passion. Finding the right passion is more important than doing the one your friend is doing.

Paneer La Jabab

It's shocking to know that in some parts of India the male female ratio has dropped to such an alarming level that a noticeable number of marriageable guys are forced to live a life of bachelorhood due to the scarcity of women in their region. Yesterday I was watching Satyameva Jayate produced by Aamir Khan on YouTube where the first episode was based on female foeticide. I thought that infanticide in India is rooted only in the backward underprivileged section of the society, but it was a terrifying revelation that the people opting for female infanticide are mostly educated hailing from sound financial background.

Years before I saw a movie called 'Matrubhoomi', the plot of which was based on a future dystopia in a village, located in Bihar, populated excessively by males owing to female foeticide practiced over the years. The condition led to a grim exploitation of women trafficked from other states and a single woman forcefully being married to multiple husbands. It was utterly disgusting to see how tragic and horrifying the social circumstances could turn out to be if an ill-practice like infanticide goes undeterred.

In times like this when women have proven themselves to be no less than their male counterparts, I only can feel sorry for the warped psychology of those who consider girl child a curse.

Shahi Paneer

Today was Sunday and planning to turn it into another feasting 'Sunday' I thought to cook something special with paneer. I combed through the cyber world in search of a recipe for shahi paneer and came across one in Sanjiv Kapoor's website. It seemed to suit what I was looking for and without further ado, I set about cooking it. However, I have made few changes to the recipe according to my palate, like I have added sugar and garnished it with green chillies. The white color of the dish in contrast with green made it a visual treat.

Regardless of the look, the dish is a kickshaw, something that you would make your friends sing your praises. The creamy aromatic succulent flavour of the dish will keep you licking your fingers.

Tofu with Black Bean Sauce

In one previous post of mine I told you I would narrate a horror incident that my sister in law's friend went through. I don't know how many of you believe in ghosts or in the supernatural existence. My husband, for instance, is a complete non-believer and he laughs away everything that sends chill down my spine. Anyway, this anecdote that I am going to share is not for non-believers. It happened to one of the friends of my sis in law. Her friend recently then shifted to Hyderabad with her husband with a new job. They rented an apartment (3BHK) and they had been living there for three months before something untoward happened to toss all their rational thoughts into turmoil.

Since only husband and wife resided in the apartment and they were a working couple, they usually used to keep two of the rooms under lock and key, using only the master bed room as their room. Now, one day in the morning prior to going to office, the husband was taking shower in the attached bathroom of their bedroom when suddenly the wife felt the need to use a toilet. So she unbolted the door of one of the two rooms that were under lock and key with intent to use the attached toilet of that room. Meanwhile, her husband came out of the bathroom and started looking for his wife who was found to be nowhere. So he was wondering as to where did his wife go when all of a sudden he heard his wife knocking on the door from inside of the room she was using to avail the toilet. It was locked from outside. His wife thought that the husband had locked it from outside not knowing that the wife was inside. But the husband denied and said that he found the door locked from outside when he came searching for his wife. The wife or anyone for that matter couldn't possibly lock herself from outside of a room. Hence the question remained "who then locked the room from outside if apart from the husband and wife, no third person was present at the home during that time?" Together they could not come to any plausible answer to the question worrying them sick with unpleasant thoughts. Within a matter of a fortnight, they chose to pack their bags and leave the apartment.

I found the above bit of story quite frightening while my hubby found it an amusing one. Perspectives differ you know. Some people cannot be convinced of anything unless they themselves go through similar experiences. My hubby has the desire to explore some of the haunted houses of Chicago which again he is very skeptical about as he believes everything is sham and made up there to force people form a wrong idea.