Monday is vegetarian day at our home. All because of that woman in my home :p She was following this for a long time so even though I argue, I usually give in. So today we were out of options. There was no paneer, which we usually have on Mondays, and almost no vegetables barring few spinach bunches and little bits of this and that. I don’t know what got into Sumi but she decided that it’s high time she tried something new with spinach.

We had this awesome spinach soup at a restaurant before and ever since wanted to try it ourselves. The main problem Sumi faces is washing the spinach leaves properly. We do not get a good quality in our locality store here and it usually has loads of sand and dirt. So this is what she spent the maximum time on. Honestly I would never have the patience to wash each and every bunch (and leaves) and then cut them nicely. But that’s Sumi for you. Anyways after this strenuous preparation, she cooked the stew surprisingly faster. And the end result was very yummy. Oh the joys of wifey cooking for you, I tell you.

Ingredients

• 1 bunch of fresh spinach stems removed
• 1 medium capsicum sliced
• 2 medium tomatoes sliced
• 1 big onion sliced
• 2 green chillies chopped
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 1 small green cardamom
• 1 Tbsp chopped garlic
• 1/2 tsp ground black pepper
• 1 Tbsp chopped fresh parsley
• 50 ml fresh cream
• 80 g butter
• Canola oil as required
• Water/Vegetable stock  100ml
• Salt as per taste

Method

In a wok add some vegetable oil; now add chopped garlic, green chillies, onion, capsicum, cinnamon and cardamom. Stir for 4-5 minutes till onions are translucent.

Add spinach, black pepper, tomatoes and cook for 5 min. Now add the stock and cook again for 15 min till gravy reduces. Add salt as per taste.

Mix well with butter, cream and parsley.

Serve hot.

If you like this post please post your comment by going to the original post here Palak Stew with Fresh Cream

© Copyright Enjoyable Recipes - Simple everyday recipes with bits of this and that and a touch of Bengali-ness

Lately Sumi and I have noticed that our vegetable intake has reduced a great deal. Due to us following the low carb diet the easiest way has been blindly consuming chicken. The veggies which are best for our diet are mostly the premium ones in terms of price. Moreover Sumi hates almost all vegetables except potato. Especially when most of the time we can have just boiled veggies. As you guys might know, the wife is the “king” of the house so I just have never been able to force her to have more veggies.

But there has been a sudden change in her the past week or 2. She has told me that she is a bit fed up of having just chicken. She wants some other taste and have more vegetables. Yay!! So the past few days we have had quite a lot of veg preparations even though they are not purely Bengali styled recipes. The reason being less oil to be used and obviously reduced spices.

Coccinia or Ivy Gourd or Kenduri (Bengali Name) helps in maintaining the blood pressure and reduces the sugar levels. To be honest, when just eaten boiled it tastes yuck LOL. But its been a while we consumed it so Sumi decided to make a light fried Kenduri preparation with Capsicum to bring variety to it. It really refreshed our taste buds. The recipe details only the plain vegetable preparation. You can also add Paneer to it to bring more flavor which is what we did (see the picture)

Ingredients

• 200 gm Kenduri (Coccinia), sliced thin and circular
• 1 big capsicum, sliced thin
• 1 medium onion, sliced thin
• 1 tsp chilli powser
• 1 tsp garam masala powder
• 1/2 tsp turmeric
• 1 Tbsp chopped green chilli
• Salt as per taste
• Mustard Oil as required
• Optional Paneer (Cottage Cheese) thinly sliced

Method

Heat oil in a wok, add chopped green chillies, onion and fry till onion becomes soft.

Add capsicum and fry for 3-4 min, add kenduri, garam masala and turmeric powder, chilli powder and fry in medium to high flame for 5 min.

Add salt and saute till kenduri is medium crisp.

Serve hot with roti/chapatti.

PS – You can also add thinly sliced Paneer (cottage cheese) during the final sauting to bring more flavor and bulkiness to the dish.

If you like this post please post your comment by going to the original post here Kenduri Capsicum Bhaja

© Copyright Enjoyable Recipes - Simple everyday recipes with bits of this and that and a touch of Bengali-ness

Usually when we sit idle working on our site or simply harvesting at Facebook or murdering the Mafia we really feel lazy and not have anything for dinner. But what can you do when your plans go awry? Actually in our case we felt hungry :-p So Sumi ran and looked into the fridge and there we had Paneer (Cottage Cheese). Our quickest option in such cases is Grilled Paneer. But guess what Sumi decided to go for something rich in masala and oil – typical Indian style. Presenting Paneer Vegetable Delight……

Ingredients

• 1/2 Cauliflower cut into medium sized florets
• 3 medium sized potatoes sliced into thin pieces
• 200gm cottage cheese cut diagonally into 1 inch cubes
• 10-12 cauliflower tender leaves/stems from inner part of cauliflower (optional)
• 1 medium sized capsicum sliced thin
• 1 onion cut into thin slices
• 4 green chillies cut diagonally
• 2 tbsp onion paste
• 4 tbsp tomato paste/puree
• 1 tbsp ginger-garlic paste
• 2 tbsp curd
• 1 tsp red chilli powder
• 1 tsp whole garam masala
• 1/4 tsp asafoetida (optional)
• 1 tsp garam masala powder
• 1 tsp Kitchen King powder
• 1/4 – 1/2 tsp turmeric powder
• 2 tbsp oil
• Extra oil to shallow fry
• A pinch of sugar
• Salt to taste

Method

Heat oil in a non-stick wok, add green chilli, cauliflowers (along with tender leaves) and capsicum and shallow fry them for around 5 minutes in medium flame till the cauliflower florets turn light golden color. Make sure you keep turning the vegetables for the entire 5 mins. Now take the vegetables out and dry out the oil and keep them aside.

Take the paneer pieces and stir fry for 1 minutes till they turn light brown. Keep it aside.

Use around 2 tbsp of the oil (that you used during shallow frying) and heat it in a pressure cooker/pan. In sequence first add whole garam masala, cut onions (with a pinch of salt and sugar – prevents onion from burning), onion paste, ginger garlic paste and all the spices and keep stirring in medium flame for 5 minutes. Now add the tomato paste (or puree) and curd and keep stirring in medium to high flame for 2 minutes. Now add the potatoes and cook in medium flame for 5 minutes. Take care the spices get mixed and cooked evenly. You may add around 50ml of water if you feel that there is no oil left. This prevents addition of more oil and the spices move around freely and get cooked evenly.

Once the potatoes get cooked, add the remaining vegetables you kept aside in the first step and keep turning all the ingredients.

Finally add the stir fried paneer cubes into the vegetables, close the cooker lid and in high flame wait for 1 whistle and after that immediately drain out the remaining steam (otherwise the cauliflowers become very soft).

Take out the lid.

You may garnish it with fresh coriander leaves.

Serve it with any Indian bread or simply plain old bread (I had it with bread actually )

If you like this post please post your comment by going to the original post here Paneer Vegetable Delight

© Copyright Enjoyable Recipes - Simple everyday recipes with bits of this and that and a touch of Bengali-ness