Chilli paneer

This is more of an Indian vegetarian snack or party dish. Approximately twenty years ago Indian-Chinese fusion food became very popular in India and this is the only dish resulting from this period that I like. It is supposed to be very spicy (hence the large number of green chillies) but you don’t have to eat the chillies – you can just leave them on the side of your plate. Feel free to reduce the number of chillies to suit your palate – just try to ignore the sound of me making chicken noises in the background.



Serves 4

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons of light tasting vegetable oil
• 200g paneer
• 1 teaspoon grated ginger
• 4 plump cloves of garlic – crushed
• 1 large onion – finely sliced
• 6-10 small green chillies – sliced lengthways into 4
• 2 red peppers – sliced into long thin strips
• 1 green pepper – sliced into long thin strips
• 5 spring onions – chopped
• Salt
• Black pepper
• ½ tablespoon corn flour
• 100 ml water
• 6 teaspoons soy sauce
• 2 teaspoons white wine vinegar
• A handful of chopped coriander

Method

1. Heat the vegetable oil in a large, deep frying pan.
2. Meanwhile cut the paneer into 1 cm cubes and then add to the frying pan. Allow the paneer to brown on all sides. This will take some time but is worth doing as the texture of the browned paneer is much more interesting than unbrowned paneer. If you are not averse to deep frying, then deep frying the cubes of paneer will be much quicker but much more unhealthy. Once brown, remove the paneer and place in a bowl of water to soak for ten minutes. This prevents the paneer from becoming hard.
3. In the pan that was used to fry the paneer, place the ginger, garlic and onion and leave to cook gently until the onion starts to become transparent.
4. At this point add the drained paneer, green chillies, red peppers, green pepper, half of the spring onions and salt and pepper. Stir and allow the mixture to cook for five minutes.
5. Dissolve the corn flour in the 100 ml of water and then add to the pan along with the soy sauce and white wine vinegar. Leave to cook on a lowish heat to allow the flavours to infuse and the sauce to thicken.
6. The dish is ready when the peppers still have a slight crunch. Garnish with the remaining spring onions and the coriander. Serve immediately.