Paneer Biriyani

If you are on lent and craving to eat some biriyani, or if you have some vegetarian guests at home or if you want to serve something different other than the usual chicken or muttonbiriyani, this Paneer Biriyani is a good option! This came out really good when I recently made it for some guests and they all enjoyed it. Got this recipe from an old Vanitha magazine. This is a great option if you are lazy to make an elaborate weekend lunch / dinner. It is easy to make and can be served with biriyani salad, mint chutney, pickle and pappad. Do try and let me know how it turns out.

Paneer Biriyani

Ingredients

For the Rice:

Basmati Rice - 2 cups

Boiling water- 4 cups

Cinnamon sticks -2 x 1” piece

Cloves - 2

Cardamom - 2

Shahi Jeera - ½ tsp

Salt - to taste

Ghee - 2 tbsp

For Paneer Masala

Paneer - 300 gms, cut into cubes

Onion - 3 medium, finely sliced

Ginger Paste - 1 tbsp

Garlic paste - 1 tbsp

Tomato - 2 medium, sliced

Chilli powder - 2 tsp

Coriander powder - 2½ tsp

Turmeric powder - ½ tsp

Fennel seeds / Perumjeerakam - ½ tsp

Cinnamon - 1 small piece

Cloves - 3

Cardamom - 3

Yogurt - ¼ cup

Cashew nuts - 8 nos, grind to a fine paste

Coriander leaves - ¼ cup, chopped

Mint leaves - 2 tbsp, chopped

Salt

Ghee 2-3 tbsp

For Garnishing

Onion - 1medium, finely sliced & fried

Fried Cashew nuts - ¼ cup

Fried raisins - ¼ cup

Ghee

Coriander & Mint leaves

Method:

Preparing the Rice: 

• Wash rice and drain out the excess water. 
• In a non-stick pan heat 2 tbsp ghee and add shahi jeera, cinnamon, cloves and cardamom and sauté for few seconds and add the rice. Stir continuously on high heat for 2-3 minutes. Add boiling water and salt, stir well and cook covered on low heat until the water has been absorbed. Gently stir the rice with a fork and keep aside.

Preparing the Paneer Masala:

• Grind together chilli powder, coriander powder, turmeric powder, fennel seeds, cinnamon, cardamom and cloves with 1 or 2 tbsp water to a fine paste. Keep it aside.
• Heat ghee in a pan and add sliced onions and sauté till the onions become golden brown in colour.
• Add ginger and garlic paste. Cook for 4 -5 mins.
• Add the ground masala paste to this and cook till the raw smell goes, around five minutes in medium heat.
• Add sliced tomatoes and cook till oil separates.
• Add cashew nut paste and yogurt and mix well. Add paneer cubes to this, cover and cook for 8-10 minutes. Add half of coriander leaves and mint leaves and remove from fire.

Assemble the Biriyani:

• Grease an ovenproof baking dish with some ghee.  Divide the rice into three portions. Spread one portion to the bottom of the dish. Cover the rice with half of the cooked paneer. Sprinkle some of the remaining coriander leaves and mint leaves, and a portion of fried cashew nuts and raisins. Spread another layer of rice on top, and then cover with the rest of the chicken, mint leaves and coriander leaves. Finally top the chicken with the last portion of rice. Drizzle some saffron soaked in milk and ghee on the rice.
• Pre-heat oven to 180˚C and bake biriyani for 15 - 20 minutes or until heated thoroughly.
• Garnish biriyani with some golden fried onions, cashews, raisins, mint and coriander leaves. Serve with Biriyani Salad (Onion and yogurtsalad), Mint chutney, Lime pickle, Dates pickle and pappad.

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Palak Paneer / Indian Cottage Cheese in Spinach Gravy

Palak Paneer is a popular paneer dish served in road side dhabas and in restaurants. Lightly fried paneer is cooked in a pureed spinach-tomato gravy. Goes well with boiled rice, chapathi or Nan.

Palak Paneer / Indian Cottage Cheese in Spinach Gravy

(Recipe adapted from NitaMehta's Paneer All the way)

Ingredients: 

Paneer (Indian Cottage Cheese) - 200 gms, cut in to 1" cubes

Palak (Spinach) - 1/2kg (1 bunch)

Onions - 2

Ginger - 1" piece

Garlic  - 5 cloves

Tomatoes - 2 medium, chopped

Green chillies - 2, chopped

Red chilly powder -1 tsp

Cardamom powder - ¼  tsp

Ghee - 3 tbsp

Salt to taste

Method:

• Wash and chop palak. Cook with 1/2 cup water for 10 minutes on low flame after the first boil. Cool and grind to a smooth paste.
• Grind onions, garlic and ginger together.
• Heat 1 tbsp ghee in a non-stick pan and slightly fry cubed paneer. Drain and keep aside.
• Heat rest of ghee in the same pan. Add onion paste and cook till onions turns golden and ghee separates.
• Add chopped tomatoes and green chillies. Cook for 5-6 minutes on slow fire, till ghee separates.
• Add ground palak, add a little water if too thick.
• Cook for 6-8 minutes on slow fire. Add salt.
• Add cardamom powder and fried paneer. Mix well and remove from fire.
• At the time of serving, heat 1 tbsp ghee,add 1 tsp red chilly powder. Remove from fire and pour this over the heated palak paneer.
• Mix well and serve at once with Rice,Chapathi, Paratha or Nan

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Saucy Paneer Recipe

Since it is the Lent Season vegetarian recipes are much in demand.... deciding the daily menu without any non-veg dish is challenging for a Christian family :D.... Since Paneer is loved by almost all I thought of sharing this Saucy Paneer recipe with you today.... with just a couple of sauces you can make this curry very quickly and it goes well with fried rice, noodles or even with chapathi.....  If you don’t have 8 to 8 sauce at home you can easily omit it or substitute with sweet and sour sauce like I do when I run out.... Instead of paneer you can also use Tofu for a vegan version..... Check out the other Paneer recipes I posted earlier too.....

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Shahi Paneer Recipe

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Paneer Butter Masala Recipe / Paneer Makhani Recipe

There are several Paneer Butter Masala recipes on the net. This is how I make it at home. This doesn’t have much cream or butter in it and we can reduce or completely omit it when you make this on a regular basis. Usually when I make it just for us I never add cream and always reduce butter to half; trust me it still tastes great :).... This is a Lakshmi Nair recipe from the Magic Oven show..... in her original recipe she adds 1 cup of peas too; since we don’t like peas much I avoid adding it.... Also I try to avoid using food colours as much as I can, hence my curry is orangish and not red :)...... 

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Paneer Tomato Curry Recipe / Cottage Cheese in Tomato Gravy

Long back soon after our wedding we were settled in a place called Gomia, in Bihar. I am sure many of you may be hearing of this place Gomia for the first time :D... There we had an amazing cook named Alku from whom I learned many basic North Indian recipes for the first time... he taught me how to make perfect paneer at home and severalpaneer recipes too... His main paneer delicacy was this simple paneer tomato curry or chilly paneer as he named this curry.... This spicy basic onion and tomato gravy is a very versatile recipe that goes well not only with paneer, but also with potatoes, cauliflower, chicken, peas, mushrooms etc etc.... Addition of cinnamon powder towards the end of cooking enhances the flavor of this curry.... This curry goes very well with Indian Breads or rice… do check out some of the variations of the same curry towards the end of the post :)....

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