Paneer Palak Methi Chaman

Blogging Marathon # 35 Week 4 Day 2

Theme : Special Theme : Bookmarked Recipes - online or otherwise

Course : Main Course

During winter season we get lots of green leafy vegetable and especially in Gujarat or Northern region of India include greens in their dishes. If you visit any house you would find either Palak, Methi, Sarso, Bathua, Amaranth etc prepared everyday as one of the main course. They say in Gujarat that Green leafy vegetable are good source of iron, calcium and is warm for body and that is the reason you will see all sorts of green leafy vegetables in winter. At my place it is a must to cook green leafy vegetable atleast once a day when in season, my mom and papa loves methi and hare lashun ki bhaji and it is cooked every alternative day. Now a days we get all sorts of green leafy vegetables throughout the year, but the taste is not same. Somehow in winter i feel the taste of vegetable is something different more fresh and that particular flavour is found only during winter. 

Rajgira Paneer Parantha (Faraal Recipes)

Blogging Marathon # 35 Week 4 Day 1

Theme : Special Theme :  Bookmarked Recipes - online or otherwise

Course : Breakfast, Snacks, Upavaas Khana

I am a big fan of trying out Tarla ji's recipes and also when ever I browse through some, and if given  blog or site have habit of bookmarking recipes and think shall make some day but could not make all. Thanks to Srivalli's brain child Blogging Marathon where we are given themes and we love to face new challenges every month and this month we had to do 3 weeks from her selected theme based cooking and the bonus was the last week theme is bookmarked either online or anyway, so I selected Tarlaji's recipes for Bookmark reason a i am big fan of her and reason b wanted to tribute the diva by making making her recipes.

Amritsari Chole - Pressure Cooker

Blogging Marathon # 35 Week 2 Day 1

Theme : Pressure Cooker Recipes
Course : Main course

When we were given the themes for this month challenge i was very happy to pick pressure cooker recipes, preparing in pressure cooker not only saves energy but also saves time too. I love to make traditional punjabi dishes such as Maa ki Daal, Dal Makhani, Chole, Rajma in cooker reason one is that it cooks faster and taste better and gives the authentic taste as of slow cooking gives and secondly it is one pot recipe, once you saute the gravy and rest is taken care of, no hazel of stirring or sticking at bottom of pan.

My first post under this theme is Amritsari chole recipe, which i learnt from my husband, he too is great cook and there would be no better occasion to showcase his recipe. Lets make Amritsari Chole.

Preparation time : 10 mins + Soaking time : 6 - 8 hrs

Cooking time : 40 mins

Serves : 4

Difficulty level : Easy

Ingredients :

2 cup channa / white chick peas

1/2 cup onion finely chopped

1/2 cup tomato crushed / pulp

3 tbsp butter

3 tbsp olive oil

1 tsp lal mirch / red chilli powder

1 tsp haldi/ turmeric

1tsp dhania powder / coriander powder

1/2 tsp anar dhana / dry pomegranate seeds

1/2 tbsp grated ginger

1/2 tbsp garlic paste

salt to taste

2 bay leaves

1 tsp jeera

For Masala/ Spice Blend:

5 cloves / laung

1"  cinnamon bark/ taj

3 choti ealichi/ green cardamom 

3 kali elaichi / black cardamom

1/2 tbsp black pepper

For Garnish:

1 dollop butter

few slices of onions

Other things required:

Pressure cooker

Spoon

Grinder or grater

Method : 

• Soak channa in water for atleast 6 - 8 hrs or overnight.
• Heat butter and oil in pressure cooker on slow heat. When it gets hot add bay leave and jeera seeds.
• When it is brown add finely chopped onions, saute for a min, add ginger garlic and saute for a 2 -3 mins.
• Grind the spice blend to coarse powder.
• Once the onions are golden brown add all the spices and saute for couple of minutes, add in crushed tomatoes.
• Saute for 10 mins or till the oil seperates, add in soaked channa and saute for a 2 - 3 mins.
• Add around 2 -3 cups of water, let the water boil.
• Close the lid of the cooker and pressure cook for 6 - 8 whistles.
• After whistles, simmer for 5 mins.
• Open the cooker when it is cool.
• After opening the lid if the gravy has not thickened simmer it for 5 mins or till the gravy has thickened.
• Transfer to bowl ans serve hot with puri or bhature or kulcha

Note :

• Soak channa in hot water if you want to make channa in an hour or so.
• Let the masala saute well in oil, this is necessary to extract the flavours of the spices.
• Never cook or saute the gravy in high flame.

Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing BM#35 

Hope you have enjoyed reading this post. Please take a minute to share views and valuable comments. Regards,
Briju Parthasarathy

Mix Veg Parantha

Parantha/ Paratha is very popular North Indian Breakfast meal specially in Punjab. Parantha is an amalgamation of the words parat and atta which means layers of cooked dough.

It is one of the most famous popular unleavened flat breads in the northern part of India and is made by pan frying the whole wheat dough on tawa/ griddle. The parantha usually contains ghee or cooking oil which is also layered on the freshly prepared parantha. Paranthas are usually stuffed with boiled potatoes, leafy vegetables, cauliflower, cottage cheese/ panner, radish, onions. Today I am going to show you how to make mix vegetable parantha's using simple ingredients and easy to make. They are best for kids lunch box as usually kids try to avoid eating vegetable and you can make them eat without any hassles and it taste yum and they will never know that they have eaten vegetables.

Amritsari Dum Aloo

Dum Aloo is named so because it is cooked under pressure 'DUM' (pressure in hindi) and Aloo means potatoes. IT is one of the famous and the most popular north indian dish. It belongs specially, to Kashmiri Cuisine but is also popular dish of Punjabi, Bengali cuisine. The potatoes used in Dum Aloo are baby potatoes and are first deep fried and cooked slowly in spices for long time.

Today I am going to show you how to make Amritsari Dum Aloo has a tang from tomatoes and yogurt and sweetness from onions in combination with Punjabi khada masala.

There are many variations of Dum Aloo i.e. ways to prepare aloo from deep frying, semi cooked in water and then fried or even can oven roast it, all depends on what you prefer If you ask me i personally prefer to deep fry first and then add in gravy but it is upto you to decide what way you would like to make. All variations taste almost same the key is in the making of gravy.