Everything At Once...: Paneer Malai Kofta

Difficulty Level : Medium

Time Required : 1 Hour +

This recipe is not really tough, just takes a bit more time to prepare - anywhere between 30-45 minutes. But once done, you won't at all regret the time spent, and in fact, you would like to spend time on it as much as possible :)

Here goes the recipe, I prepared it yesterday and my whole family liked it a lot. This recipe would serve 4-5 people.

Ingredients:

Potatoes - medium - 3 , boiled and peeled
Paneer or cottage cheese - 200 gm
Raisins - 1 tbsp
Cashewnuts - 3 tbsp
Fresh cream - 1/2 cup (if not available , replace by 1/2 cup thickened milk)
Coriander powder - 1 and 1/2 tsp
Garam masala powder - 1/2 tsp (I substituted it with kitchen kind masala)
salt - as per taste
Corn flour - 3 tbsp
Refined oil - 1 cup - for deep frying the koftas
Vegetable oil or mustard oil - 3 tbsp for preparing the curry
Onion - 1 large
Tomatoes - 2 large
Green chilli - 1
Khara garam masala - 2 cardamom, 2 cloves and 1medium piece of cinnamon

Method:

For the Koftas:

Mash the potatoes. Grate the paneer and add to the mashed potatoes. Add corn flour, salt to taste , 1/2 tsp coriander powder, 1/4 tsp garam masala powder, all the raisins and 1 tbsp cashew nuts to it. Mix everything together. Take small amounts of this mixture into your hand and roll into a round ball.

Try making all the balls of the same size, for this, you can pre-divide the mixture into equal portions. You can make small, medium or large balls depending on your choice. Put a heavy bottom pan on the stove and pour the refined oil into it. Let the oil heat up to frying temperature. One by one drop the balls in the the oil and let them fry till golden brown. Turn them once or twice so that they are equally fried from all sides. Take them out. Below are some snaps of the balls (koftas) that I prepared:


One side of the plate are the koftas which are fried (golden brown ones) and the other side are the one to be fried.

All koftas fried :)

For the curry or gravy:

Peel and cut the onion into 2 halves. Cut the tomatoes in 2 halves as well. Add them to a pan with water and let them boil on medium heat for 7-10 minutes. Once done, put off the flame, take them out and let them cool. Add 2 tbsp cashew nuts to water and leave them soaked for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, grind them to a fine cashew paste and set aside. Once the onion and tomato pieces are cold enough to grind in a mixie, add them to the mixer along with the chilli and grind to a smooth paste. Put a wok on the flame and add the mustard oil to it. When hot, add the onion and tomato paste and then fry it till the raw smell of tomatoes is gone (takes nearly 10 minutes) . Then add to it 1 tsp coriander powder, 1/4 tsp garam masala powder, salt to taste and fry for 2-3 more minutes. Now add the cashew paste and fry for one more minute. Add the khara garam masalas to it. Now add the whipped cream and mix everything so that the gravy has a smooth texture. Add 4-5 cups water and let it boil to a smooth consistency. After 2-3 minutes, turn off the flame and drop the kofta balls into the gravy. Your paneer malai kofta is ready, let it sit for 10-15 minutes before serving, the kofta will absorb the gravy and thus, the gravy will become thick in consistency.

After that you can serve it with naan, or tandoori roti or freshly made rice or any rice preparation like pulav or jeera rice.

Decoration :

You can decorate your yummy paneer malai kofta with some grated panner, some red chilli powder, corainder leaves and top it with fresh cream. Below is a snap of how mine looked like: