Cooking Cooking and more Cooking !!

Panner butter masala, Gobi manchuriyan, Dal fry, palak panner, aalo Gobi masala etc etc. sounds delicious right? Yes! Eating all these is not a big deal, but how to make all these? Always we cannot rely on restaurants. Off late I developed little interest in cooking, but never wanted to try out in a full fledge as I am scared of kitchen work. Initially I had this impression that kitchen work is all worst, its one big time headache blah blah. But nowadays I started liking it. Currently the time has come to show my cuisine talents.

One evening I walked into Spencer’s daily grocery to buy some butter to make ghee, suddenly my eyes stopped to an attractive packet of panner, the cover of that packet had a print of panner masala. It really looked yummy! Immediately I took it and placed it along with other stuffs I bought. On my way back home, I was thinking why did I buy it? I don’t know how to make it, and my mom will also not like doing north Indian dishes. What to do? I never tried north Indian dish by my own.

Then I reached home, without my mom’s knowledge I kept the panner deep inside the chiller. I desperately wanted to have panner masala but I did not know the preparation method. After sometime I opened the chiller to see whether there is any method of preparation behind the pack. Wow!! To my surprise I saw the method, it all looked simple. I needed few extra things to make the dish. Since it was around 9pm, I could not go out and buy the missing items.

Next day morning around 8am I went to market and got the absent ingredients. I was all set to surprise my mom and brother. I told my mom not to come to kitchen as I am going to surprise her. (Thou she does not like these dishes, I wanted to show that I can make what I like and eat happily). This is the foremost time I am trying a north Indian dish completely by my own. I started to cut vegetables; onion, tomato, ginger, coriander. Eyes went real red after cutting onion. After a while I washed my face and continued to do my work. With the help of few links from internet I somehow finished the dish. I am all set to garnish the panner masala with some coriander and ready to serve.

And this is how my recipe looked :) (camera mobile, clarity will be little low)

Now I am yet to taste the recipe and all set for the first taste of it. Trust me; I was really scared how it would taste. I was praying all God’s before I was about to go for the initial tang… oops! I am afraid to taste, what if it tastes bad:(. I decided to give to my brother first, let him taste and give me the remarks.

I quietly went to my brother and showed him the dish and gave a spoon to taste; I closed my eyes when he went for it. There was silence for 10seconds and then I opened my eyes, he was so damn amazed and said “I never expected you to do such a wonderful thing in the first shot! Wow!” my face was brightened with joy, and then I felt like tasting, yipeeeee, it was awesome; next mom had a savor of it and was happy to know I can cook well. I felt very proud of myself.

Later I was all tired after doing the recipe, it is not a big work but for the first time it was bit hectic; and then I realized how mom used to feel tired after doing so many dishes. Really great. Hence I learnt one thing; eat what you like by cooking on your own, it will taste better and the best. :)

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Here is the method of preparation !

Heat butter in a kadai and add the onion puree and fry till they turn light brown in color. Add Ginger-Garlic paste to the brown paste mixture and saute for sometime. Then add the chillipowder, coriander powder, tomato puree, turmeric powder, garam masala powder and salt and saute for sometime. Now Add the soaked paneer cubes, some water and allow it to cook till the gravy becomes semi-solid. Finally garnish with coriander and fresh cream. Panner butter masala is ready :)