Cheese /Paneer stuffed grilled tomatoes

Colourful and delicious, easy to make

Paneer stuffed, grilled tomatoes

Tomatoes, bright, red , firm yet juicy, pulpy. That is what most homes across the country invariably stock, along with potatoes and onions. The vegetable that is really a fruit, is very versatile generally, and  a must-ingredient in thousands of dishes.

As a child, I recall eating it quartered, with a sprinkling of salt and pepper, garnished with finely chopped green coriander, and chilled for a while.

Even now raw tomato is part of many salads. Lovely..

But  I find myself grilling tomatoes, in many ways.

Last weekend, I stuffed the tomatoes with cottage cheese—paneer—and grilled them. The result was a visual treat, as well as mouth watering ! Like many dishes in this blog, it is easy and quick to make, and one has only to walk up to the fridge for the ingredients required for it.

Simple ingredients

Ingredients:

Firm,red tomatoes-2 or 3, depending on how many people you want to serve

Cottage cheese-2 teaspoons per tomato

Finely chopped onion- One tablespoon full

Finely chopped, deseeded green chillies-one teaspoon level

Salt-to taste

If  you don’t have cottage cheese

Worry not.

Boil one cup of milk, add a ladel full of yoghurt, stir for a few minutes/till the milk splits, and the cottage cheese separates from the whey. Strain, and you have the cottage cheese you need for two tomatoes.

METHOD

Crumble the cottage cheese in one large bowl. Add the chopped onions,green chillies and salt. Keep aside

Wash and pat dry two tomatoes. Cut them into halves, and scoop out the juice/pulp, and use it for some other dish.

Fill the tomato halves with the cottage cheese mixture, and grill (I used my gas top tandoor, the traditional aluminum one available everywhere in India. But an electric grill will do just as well)  till the crust of the cheese turns slightly golden, and you have grill marks on the tomatos, which will have become somewhat soft by now.

Garnish with chopped coriander(optional), and serve.

(I did not have coriander, so I skipped it. But I had excess of cottage cheese mixture, so I stuffed two halves of boiled potatoes, and grilled them as well!)

Chena Pada /Cheese cake from Odisha

Chena pada that is easy to make, and very delicious..

Chena pada or cottage cheese cake of Odisha

In the run up of the Lok Sabha elections in 2009, I got the opportunity to travel with the country’s seniormost politician, Mr Lal Krishan Advani, as he addressed rallies in Odisha (then it was Orissa) where his Bharatiya Janata Party’s relations with the ruling Biju Janata Dal, had turned bitter, very bitter.

But for me that tour will be one of the sweetest—not in terms of memories, but literally sweet, in terms of food, or dessert or mithai…call it what you will.

We were staying at Mayfair, a beautiful resort in Bhuvaneshwar, and Mr Advani was to address a rally at Cuttack, a little short of an hour’s drive. The rally had caused enough traffic jam on the highway, it was getting dark, and I restless because I did not want to miss a minute of it all. It was the BJP’s first foray in Odisha after the bitterness of the relationship gone sour.

At one particular stretch, the traffic seemed much more than what one would estimate between two small towns, never mind the rally factor. The Mahila BJP member who accompanied, rather escorted, me to Cuttack stopped the car, and insisted I get off. What did I see? On both sides of the roads, under thatched roof, huge log-wood fires, with something very sugary cooking ! And as I got near one of those shops, I saw huge thaals/paraats/plates, of rosagullas and gulab jamuns, and massive cubes of what seed to be caramel custard. I was wrong. It was chena poda… a cheese cake that is Odisha’s very own. The village was Pahala, and my hostess insisted it was world famous, and I could not go back without sampling the fare. I was so, so full that evening, I went to bed without  dinner, and at the rally I did not want even a glass of water.

But from the very next day, I had this craving for the sweet. I figured it was called chena pada, and made of paneer/cottage cheese. And imagine my delight when I found the Odisha stall at Dilli Hat, making and serving it on a regular basis !

Here goes my version of the recipe that the attendant at that stall shared with me. And it turned out remarkably well, though it did it not have that wonderfully smoked, and very malty taste of what I had eaten –overeaten—at Pahala.

It was easy to make, great to look at, and left us all wanting more.

Ingredients:

Full cream milk-1 litre

Semolina/sooji/rawa-1 tablespoon

Sugar-2 tablespoons + 1 teaspoon

Seeds of 3 cardamoms, crushed, powdered

Almonds- 10 or 12, blanched and slivered

Saffron strands—a few, soaked in a teaspoon of cold milk

Ghee- Less than a teaspoon, to grease the mould

Process:

    Boil and split the milk to make fresh cottage cheese. I used yoghurt to do this, because I find the cottage cheese made this way soft, gentle, compared to using lime juice, citric acid etc.

    Pour the split milk through a muslin cloth, to separate the cottage cheese from the whey

     

S Squeeze the cloth tight to ensure  the whey has drained away completely, and cool for a few minutes in a large  bowl.

    Add the semolina, 2 tablespoons sugar, cardamom powder, saffron with the milk, and knead till smooth yet crumbly. Now add the almond slivers and knead again.

    

      

    Grease the mould with ghee, sprinkle  the teaspoon of sugar, and hold it over the gas flame to gently caramalise till a beautiful amber color.

     Fill the mould with the cottage cheese-semolina-sugar “dough”, and bake in the centre of an oven preheated at 180 degrees, for 15 minutes, then lower the temperature to 160 degrees and bake for another 10 to 15 minutes.

   

     Ensure that the crust has turned somewhat golden, and test with a knife/tooth pick that should come out clean

     After it rests in the oven for a few minutes, invert on a plate, and serve warm or cold.

    

 I 

 I 

I        

                 It  will keep well in an airtight container in the fridge for a week, I was told. 

                 But we finished it in a day !

Paneer & Grilled Vegetable Platter

Cottage Cheese, Capsicum,Tomato and Onions, from the Gas Tandoor.

Paneer,Capsicum,Onions and Tomatoes, grilled in a gas top   tandoor

The best way to eat vegetables, I’m told, is to grill them very simply, add a dash of lime juice and whatever else you like, and enjoy them. This line of thinking  has gained currency more of late, as people fear that salads--- which enjoyed the distinction of being the best way to eat many vegetables,till recently--- have become suspect. Thanks to pesticides, dirty water etc etc, that make the health conscious want to distance themselves from raw vegetables.

I love raw vegetables and eat them unmindful of what the Doubting Thomases say. Not that I doubt the wisdom of their view. It is just that I feel it is important to keep one’s immunity in good form , instead of becoming a delicate darling who can’t eat raw vegetables or drink regular water, from a home filter.

Marinated paneer, veggies on the screwer

The smokey aroma of  chicken being roasted in the tandoor, has always kindled my appetite, made me crave. Unfortunately, one doesn’t get to take in the aroma of vegetables being grilled likewise.The good and popular  streetside places for tandoori food rarely do vegetable platters.

But grilling /barbecuing vegetables  is simple. Much of the total  time taken goes towards the cutting of vegetables and  the marinading . Once those are done, and your  BBQ or gas tandoor(like the one I have) or oven is hot, it hardly takes a few minutes.

All the great looking, colourful  vegetables—yellow and red bell peppers, green capsicum, broccoli, carrots, potatoes, cauliflower,tomatoes, onions-- are great on the tandoori platter. Cottage cheese and mushroom add that extra body, oomph and taste to it.

 I’ve had cubes of pineapple also , cooked with these. The simple rule is—don’t fret over what you don’t have. Use whatever vegetables you can find in your fridge.

This is how I made the BBQ vegetables you see in this post:

Ingredients:

For the marinade:

Vegetable oil-1 teaspoon

Yoghurt-Half a cup

Garlic-5 pods

Ginger- one inch piece

Pepper—Half a teaspoon

(you can also use 2 tsps ofginger-garlic instead of 

ginger and garlic)

For the platter:

Paneer-200 grams

Capsicum- 1 bit one

Onion-1 big one

Tomato-1 big one

For the side:

Green chutney

Tomato ketchup

Method:  

Cut the cottage cheese into big cubes. Cut the capsicum into four pieces vertically, and halve them. Cut the onion into half, and separate a few parts.  Cut the tomato into halves.

Mix all the marinade ingredients  in a blender, for two minutes. Pour it over the cut vegetables, and gently toss to ensure all the pieces get a coat of the marinade.Leave it  covered in the fridge, for at least half an hour. A couple of hours is great.

The Gas top tandoor

Fire up your oven/tandoor/BBQ, string the vegetables in the screwer and place them in its  hot, hot,  womb   . Turn the sides of  the vegetables after  about three minutes, and drizzle a touch of  vegetable oil every time. 

Enjoy the sight of the flames licking the paneer , leaving a golden telltale mark in the edges. See it char, a wee bit, the capsicum, and defeat the tomatos into squishy, somewhat limp form. 

Take them off the fire, after you  have enjoyed the smokey, tandoori armoma whafting in the air, for eight to ten minutes.

Carefully, take them off on a plate. Sprinkle salt, and  some “chaat masala” if you like. Serve with green chutney and tomato ketchup on the side.

Some crunchy raw greens will be great…but the purpose of this BBQ is to eat vegetables—grilled, not raw!