Piano Christmas party

It’s a Festivity time. Everyone is getting prepared for the big day which is Christmas Day. Lots of parties around too. Yesterday, my daughter’s Piano teacher hosted a party for all of her piano pupils and their parents. I promised her do some Indian food courtesy Curry Coddler. Yvonne, the piano teacher is a lovely lady and a very very positive person with a big smile on her face always.

I was struggling to decide what to cook for the crowd of about 25 people. I finally decided to do Samosas and chicken tikka and some paneer puffed patties day before yesterday. Went and did my quick shopping and started the preparation.

Cooking Samosas for 1 or 2 people is a breeze. Mind you cooking the same for 25 is a bit of a challenge. Cooking part of it is alright but rolling out the pastry, filling it and the frying them all takes time and tremendous patience. This process is dull and boring. Anyway, I kept my motivation high and made 26 Samosas. And then marinated chicken. And yesterday, an hour before the party I did the chicken tikka and the paneer puffs. Chicken Tikka turned out perfect and I left paneer puffs in the oven for too long and guess what – obviously burnt patties:(
Anyway, it was time to go and wasn’t possible to do anything else. Only consolation I had was that the other 2 things had turned out pretty good.
Party was lovely! All the children played nice tappy songs on piano. And the food definitely stole the show in the end. And guess what – lots of happy faces at the end. And made me think that all those samosa were worth the effort and I forgot all about the burnt disaster;)
Curry Coddlers, lets try to put a smile on people’s faces this holiday season.
Cheers!

PANEER – RCEL(read it, cook it, eat it, love it)

PANEER

Paneer (fresh cheese), what a lovely ingredient to use in the kitchen! It is an unaged, acid-set, non-melting home made cheese made by curdling heated milk with lemon juice or citric acid. Unlike most cheeses in the world, the making of paneer does not involve rennet as the coagulation agent, thus making it completely lacto-vegetarian and providing one of the sources of protein for vegetarians in India. It is generally unsalted.

Since childhood, I have loved eating paneer and as I grew up; my love for this lovely ingredient grew bigger and bigger. I always order a Paneer dish whenever I dine out. My husband calls me a Paneer freak.

As much as I like eating it; my passion to cook it is no less. My all time favourite dish is Paneer tikka. Umm! As I’m writing about it; my mouth is watering:)

Paneer is such a versatile ingredient that you can do anything with it. Cook it in any form using any method; it’ll always surprise you.

I have made it many times and would like to share this lovely recipe with you. So you RCEL too..

Paneer Tikka

Ingredients:

Paneer – 200 gms,cut into cubes
Capsicum – 1,cut into 1’ pieces
Onion – 1,cut into cubes

For the Marinade

Thick yogurt – 1 cup
Thick cream – 3 tbsp
Oil – 1 ½ tbsp
Ginger-garlic paste – 1 tbsp
Red chilli powder – ½ tsp
Tandoori masala Or Chicken masala – 1 tbsp
All purpose flour – 2 tbsp.
Salt to taste

Method

Take all the ingredients for the marinade in a mixing bowl and mix them well and add paneer and rest of the
veggies. Mix well and keep aside for an hour.
Line a baking tray with a parchment paper and lightly grease it.
Arrange the tikkas on a skewer or a toothpick (if using toothpick, the paneer and veggies should be chopped in a small size).
Preheat oven to 180*C.
Place the tikkas in the hot oven and cook for 10 minutes.
Sprinkle some melted butter on the tikkas and cook again for 5 minutes.
Sprinkle chat masala and lemon juice.
Serve hot!