Culinary Adventures--An American White Girl Makes Indian Food

It all started with paneer. This is a yummy cottage-cheese-type product that is a staple in Indian food. It's very firm and maintains its shape instead of melting. I've thoroughly enjoyed it every time I've ordered a dish that contained it.

It seemed easy enough to make, and as it turns out, it was. I took a gallon of skim milk and heated it on medium until it boiled. It has to boil, not just simmer. I stirred occasionally and did other things while I was waiting patiently for it to boil--and it takes a long time, I'm guessing 40 minutes or so; I should have paid more attention. Once boiling, I added 8 TBSP of lemon juice, which curdles the milk. I took it off the heat, stirred it well and let it sit for about 5-10 minutes to finish curdling. Then I poured it into a strainer lined with cheesecloth, covered the top with the cheesecloth, and pushed on it with the back of my wooden spoon to squish out the remaining whey (liquid). After a minute or two, I could get in there comfortably with my hands. To really get it drained, I put it on a cookie sheet, filled the pot with water for weight, and put the pot on top of the cheese for about 20 minutes. (I put a clean dish towel between the cheese and the pot, just in case.) I ended up with some mighty nice, fat-free paneer. A gallon of milk got me about a pound of cheese. Not bad...cheese for about $2.50-$3.00 per pound.

Once I knew I could make the paneer happen, I started looking up recipes. I love saag paneer, so that was one of the recipes I searched. I needed something that was fairly simple and didn't call for a bunch of weird ingredients that I'd have to find and order online. The one I finally settled on was from the Food Network page: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/tyler-florence/saag-paneer-recipe/index.html.

I appreciated that it gave the recipe for ghee, a clarified butter product. I have seen it at the natural food store I frequent, but it's rather expensive. But given the high fat content, I decided to substitute plain old butter for the ghee, a common switcheroo that I came across quite often in my recipe research. I also used about half of what the recipe called for--just enough to get my paneer cooked and the veggies sauteed. My paneer didn't actually brown, though. I think it might be because it was non-fat or because I used butter instead of ghee, or maybe a little of both. It was still fabulous, though.

The Food Network site also gave a recipe for curry, which I might use in the future. This time, I used a hot curry powder I'd gotten at the New World Market and already had on hand. In the end, it wasn't quite as hot as I'd prefer, but it was a nice slow burn that still let you taste the food.

I made a little adjustment to the recipe by throwing in a couple of handfuls of sliced almonds. It gave a little texture and tasted awesome. I've had this before in restaurants with dates in there as well, so maybe that will be a next time thing. (And by dates I mean the fruit, not the boys I went to Indian restaurants with.)

A couple of other next-time things: The fat-free paneer was good, but it had a squeaky texture to it. I'll probably use 2% milk next time to get some creamy-ness back in. I'll also use more spinach and yogurt to give it a more sauce-like texture. If I'm feeling really ambitious, I'll blend the spinach and veggies as well. They do that at the Bombay Grill and it's pretty good!

Now for the side dishes!

At the natural food store, I found brown basmati rice. I'd never cooked it before, so I used their ratio and time setting: 2 parts water to 1 part rice, wash rice, put in boiling water, simmer covered for 40-50 minutes. When the rice was done cooking, there was still water left over and it was sticky, not fluffy, even after I uncovered it and tried to simmer off the remaining moisture. I'll need to decrease the water next time...maybe 1.5 parts water to 1 part rice, watch it carefully and add water if necessary. I'd made some white basmati in our rice cooker, though, and the brown rice was still quite good, so it wasn't a big deal.

I had to finish the day with naan--basically a yeasted flat bread, or dinner rolls flattened and cooked on a grill. I found a simple recipe here: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Naan/Detail.aspx

I didn't trust the cleanliness of our grill, plus it's a gas grill and it might have been gross tasting. I couldn't find our little hot dog oven-top grill, so I pulled out our pancake griddle. I was able to cook six at a time and got through it all pretty fast. So I didn't have pretty grill marks on the bread, but it didn't really matter. I did hand-flatten and shape them, so they were a bit thicker than they should be. Had I bothered to clean off the counter and make another mess, I could have rolled them out to be really flat and more authentic, but I was lazy and in a hurry.

As a cooling-factor--something I think is important with spicy food--I made another batch of my herbed yogurt and cheese spread from my "Book of Yogurt" by Sonia Uvezian. It's basically low fat cream cheese, feta, and yogurt with fresh mint, dill, chives, and garlic. I substitute yogurt cheese for the cream cheese and eyeball quantities, and it turns out really well. It was excellent on the naan, provided a nice little cool break from the curry, and also allowed me to take credit for a little fusion cuisine!

So in all, this adventure was a success! It required quite a bit of pre-planning, since I made the paneer ahead of time and yeast bread always needs wait-time, but I'd do it again. We have a lot of leftover naan (I purposefully doubled the recipe) and I think it will make good snacks and sandwiches (some more fusion cuisine).

The next project: homemade frozen yogurt. Stay tuned.