Grilled paneer with veggies

Here's another recipe that we tried out (from the LG cook book again!) and I think is worth a mention. This was more like a starter, but we ate it as an accompaniment to piping hot chapatis, and what a hit it turned out to be!

The grilled paneer with vegetables needed some 200 grams of cubed paneer, green (and if you want to add to the colors - red and yellow capsicum), onions, tomatoes. Cut all of the veggies into big pieces.

For marinating the vegetables and paneer, grind some mint leaves, coriander leaves, green chillies and garlic together into a paste. To this paste, squeeze in some lemon and one tablespoon of hung curd. Take a microwave safe glass bowl, put in the vegetables and paneer into it, and add the mint mixture into the vegetables. Sprinkle some turmeric, red chilli powder and garam masala powder and a teaspoon of butter. Make sure all of the vegetables are mixed well together with the mint paste.

Refrigerate this for about 30 minutes and grill it in a microwave till slightly golden brown on all sides. This might take around 20 minutes. Try it to believe the taste!! The mint and lemon flavour gives a wonderful flavour and you will absolutely love it!

Jeera fried rice with Tangy Potato fingers

So here goes... am back in Pune for sometime, and raring to go on the microwave cooking front. I have my niece with me for a few days, who is sure to appreciate my culinary attempts (irrespective of the final output!!).

So the countdown begins. We started the first day with an interesting recipe we found in the cook book which came along with our microwave. This turned out to be a decent accompaniment for Jeera rice.

As the name indicates, we peeled and cut the potatoes into french fry like fingers and microwaved them for 6 minutes. While the potatoes were kept aside to cool, we prepared the ingredients for the gravy. It required one chopped spring onion, chopped green chillies (as per your taste), 7 flakes of garlic (chopped again). Heat some butter in a microwave safe bowl for one minute, then add the above chopped stuff into it and heat it for 2 minutes. Toss the potatoes into this mixture, add a ladle of tomato sauce, one (or even two if you like it to be more soya saucy) ladle of soya sauce and one ladle of vinegar. Take a small cup, and put two heaped teaspoons of cornflour into it. Pour half a cup of water and mix the cornflour well. Pour this mixture into the potatoes. Add some pepper and salt to taste and toss them well together. Microwave the above mixture for 4 minutes and allow to stand in that heat until your jeera rice is ready!

The jeera rice was a simple one. We fried mustard, jeera and cashewnuts (till golden brown), added onions and sauted till transparent. In went some washed frozen peas and then the basmati rice (which was kept soaked in water for half an hour). Add some water (we used a proportion of 1:1 for rice and water), and allow to pressure cook until one whistle. Simmer for 5 minutes and then allow to stand.

Oh yes.. I forgot the salt! Before pressure cooking the rice, add salt to taste.

There you go - you now have a tangy flavoured potato fingers, to go along with the simple jeera rice.