Paneer Jeerawala

This is my first very OWN recipe and everyone loved it! I almost wanted to call it Paneer Siriwala but that would be a little too ostentatious. I made it for dinner yesterday to go with chapatis (rotis). It not only comes out tasty but is also a low calorie dish. Even though I have a camera phone now I forgot to take a picture of the dish. Next time I will surely remember to!! The preparation took me half an hour on the whole.

What you need to make Paneer jeerawala

• 100 gms paneer
• 3 tomatoes
• 2 onions
• 2 tsps cumin seeds (jeera)
• Ginger - 1 inch diameter piece
• Garlic - 5-6 pods
• 3 tsp oil
• 1/4 tsp turmeric
• 3 tsp red chilly powder
• Salt

Preparation for making Paneer jeerawala

• Cut the paneer into small cubes
• Cook the tomatoes using pressure cooker. Else there is a "safer" :) way. just pierce the tomatoes on all 4 sides (I know I know a tomato is round so where is the side you say? Okay just pierce it all around) and put them in a vessel. Add water to the vessel and allow it to boil. The tomatoes should be cooked in ten minutes.
• Remove the skin of the cooked tomatoes and Puree them in a blender.
• Cut the onions into very tiny pieces. Its easier to use a chopper for this.
• Make the ginger and garlic into a fine paste.

Method to make Paneer jeerawala

• Place a heavy bottomed vessel on the flame and add oil. After it heats a little add the cumin seeds and allow it to splutter. It splutters little.
• Now add turmeric to this.
• Put in the ginger and garlic paste and mix.
• Add chopped onions to this, sautee and wait till it turns soft and is well done.
• Add the red chilly powder and mix.
• Now add the tomato puree to this and allow it to boil.
• Put the paneer cubes in and allow it to slowly blend with the gravy while the whole thing simmers.
• Add required amount of salt.

My fundas

• Eat hot with phulkas (chapatis with no oil smeared while making) and they are yummy.
• Paneer takes a while to soak in the flavours of the gravy that its in so what I did was allow it to simmer while I made the chapatis which was another half an hour.