Paneer Stuffed Peppers

This is a delicate, rich dish and beautifully contrasts with a spicy dish such as chhole. You can modify the recipe as per your taste and add/ drop ingredients depending on the availability.



Ingredients

• 15 Colored mini-peppers
• 2 tsp oil
• 1 tsp. chopped coriander

For stuffing

• 8 oz. paneer (cottage cheese)
• 1 tomato
  
• 1 tsp. red chilli powder
• 1/2 tsp. garam masala
• 1/2 tsp. punjabi masala
  
• 1/2 tsp. cumin powder
• 1/2 tsp coriander powder
• Salt to taste
• 1 1/2 tsp sugar
• 2 tsp white powder
  
• 2 tsp almond, walnut powder (optional)

Method

• Take tomato in a mixie and make its purée
• Grate about 1 tsp of paneer and keep aside to use for garnishing.
• In a mixing bowl, crumble the remaining paneer. Add to it tomato purée and the remaining ingredients for stuffing.
• In a plate take the peppers. Using a sharp knife, make an incision in the peppers, starting from the top and stopping just before the tail. Do not cut all the way through, it has to be one whole piece.
• Take one pepper at a time. Gently pry open the pepper at the slit with one hand. With the other hand, gently stuff the paneer mixture we prepared earlier.
• Repeat for all the peppers.
• In a large, shallow pan, heat the oil. Once the oil heats, put all the peppers, one at a time in a single layer. You can sprinkle little water on the pan so that the peppers get cooked with the steam.
• Place the lid. Cook on low-medium heat for about 7 minutes or till the bottom sides of the peppers are cooked.
• Turn all the pepper so the the uncooked side is at the bottom. Spread the remaining paneer stuffing over the peppers. Place the lid again and cook for another 5 minutes.
• Once the peppers are cooked, arrange them in a serving dish or bowl. Garnish with corinader leaves and grated paneer. Server hot with bread.

White Powder

Just as the punjabi masala this name comes from the only cooking class I took. Some punjabi dishes are cooked in white gravy. It's good to have this powder handy so that we don't spend too much time in doing everything from scratch.
Also, every year for lakshmi pujan, we get sali lahya (puffed paddy rice). Those do not taste great as is, but they are highly nutritious and I prefer to consume them in some form at least. I use those in this recipe. If you use makhane (euryale ferox seeds) for the pooja, you can add those too. You can also add dried cantaloupe seeds.

So here goes the recipe.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup puffed paddy rice
• 1 tsp poppy seeds
• 2 tsp. sesame seeds
• 8-10 cashews

Method

Take all the ingredients and roast and low-medium flame for 5 minutes. Let it cool for another 5 minutes. Grind to a fine powder in a mixie. You can store this powder and use in various recipes that are made in white gravy.