Paneer fry

I am a huge fan of paneer. On my last visit to India, when I discovered a huge bag of paneer in the supermarket, I couldn't resist buying it. I know i'm crazy, but I brought the whole 1 kg bag of paneer to Qatar-only to realise that we get the same pack over here also ;)
This was the first dish I prepared using this paneer. I took the recipe from www.aayisrecipes.com .It is a food website managed by Shilpa. She has some great recipes there. Do visit her website.

The dish was originally named paneer chilly, but since I found it the least spicy, I decided to rename it Paneer fry.
Paneer fry or paneer chilly, whatever the name be, tastes really good. I think I'd rate it 3.5/5. The reason being that it does not have the WOW factor in it, but it surely will get over within a few minutes. The onions and capsicum give it a very good flavour. You can serve it as an appetizer or for dinner alongside khubz or chappathi.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup Paneer chopped into cubes
• 3-4 green chilies
• 1 tea spn soya sauce
• 1 tea spn tomato ketchup
• 1/2 tea spn ginger-garlic paste
• 1/2 cup onions slices
• 1/2 cup capsicum slices
• 1 tbl spn oil
• 2-3 strands coriander leaves
• Salt
  
  Method:
• Heat oil and fry the Paneer cubes till they turn slightly brownish. Take them out.
  

• In the remaining oil, add ginger-garlic paste and onions.
• Fry till onions turn translucent.
• Add capsicum, slitted green chilies and fry till they become soft.
• Add soya sauce, tomato ketchup, salt and paneer.
• Mix well. Garnish with coriander leaves.
  

Koshary

Koshary or Moghrabeh is a popular egyptian dish. Koshary is to Egypt, what paani puri is to Bombay. What I mean is that stalls selling Koshary at extremely low prices can be found on roadsides in Egypt. So what excatly is koshary? If you order for a plate of koshary in egypt, you will see the vendor take a plate, put in a handful of rice, handful of vermecilli, handful of lentils and then top it all up with a red coloured sauce.
I tasted this at our neighbour, Jaleelcha's house during a party. You've got to try this, it is simply awesome!!


Ingredients:
1 cup rice
1 cup pasta(preferably elbow)
1 cup lentils
1 cup vermecilli (the thicker variety)
2 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, chopped finely
3 cloves garlic, crushed and finely chopped
1 1/2 cup peeled and chopped tomatoes
1 tsp chilli powder
salt
pepper
oil for deep-frying
1 large onion, thinly sliced

Method:
Boil rice, pasta, vermecilli and lentils till done. Since all 4 have different cooking time, you'll have to cook them individually. Addsalt while cooking rice and pasta. DO NOT add salt to lentils as it will increase the cooking time.
Heat olive oil in a saucepan. Saute onion and garlic till translucent.
Add tomatoes, chilli, salt and pepper. cook till tomatoes are well-mashed and you have a thick sauce ready. Water can be added if sauce gets too thick.




Deep fry onions in oil on high flame till they become brown and crisp.

Divide the rice into four equal portions and the lentils, pasta nad vermecilli into 2 equal portions each.
Layer a portion of rice into a casserole. Sprinkle 1 tbsp of fried onions.
Top with a layer of lentils. Sprinkle 1 tbsp of fried onions.
Then make a layer of pasta followed by the vermecilli and finally wih one more portion of rice. After each layer, sprinkle 1 tbsp of fried onions.
Repaeat the whole process with one more casserole.
So basically you have 2 casseroles, each with a layer of rice, lentils, pasta, vermecilli and one more layer of rice with some fried onions between each layer.

For serving: Spoon a large serving of the rice mixture onto your plate. Add some of the sauce over the rice. Garnish with fried onions.

Cornflakes biscuits

Okay.....that was a looooong holiday. But I think it is high time now that I restart my blog and Insha Allah, I won't be stopping my blog in the near future. I have got loads of recipes to post.

During my preparatory holidays, I and Nada used to sleep late at night and wake up late in the morning. One such night, we were craving for a midnight snack. Nada requested, or rather "emotionally blackmailed" me to prepare chocolate chip cookies. I agreed but then realised that we did not have chocolate chips. It is then that I remembered about these cookies that belimma used to prepare loooong back. I felt it would be perfect as it is a no-fail recipe and is ready in like half an hour. I kept all the ingredients on the countertop and then realised we were short of one ingredient. What?----CORNFLAKES. Okay, now this was crazy, I couldn't believe my luck. Par main haar maanne waalon main se nahi hoon. So what if it was almost midnight, I decided to go to MP. But the next problem was "permission". Umma was sleeping and belimma would never let us go to MP late in the night. That is when we remembered that our "pyaari uncle" was still awake. I went up to Shaheenkaka and requested him to get cornflakes. He replied that he was sleepy. I asked him if I could go with Noora and he said ok. Yes! No more obstacles. I quickly went down and got a carton of cornflakes and we had delicious cornflakes ready in 30 minutes

Makes: 3 Dozen

Ingredients:

1 cup cornflakes

1 cup dessicated coconut

1 cup chopped nuts (I use cashewnut)

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup oil

2 eggs

1/2 tsp cardamom

Method:

Mix all ingredients and make small lime sized balls with your hand. Slighly flatten them and place them on a nonstick baking dish. Bake for 15 minutes at 350 degrees farenheit or until the top becmes slightly golden colour. The biscuits will still be soft when removed from the oven but will harden in about 10 minutes.

Before baking:

After baking: