Paneer Jalfrezi

Jalfrezi dish has its origins in Bengal region of India at the time of the British Raj. The name comes indirectly from Bengali jhāl, spicy food, and Urdu parhezī, suitable for a diet.  Jalfrezi is not a dish it is a popular cooking method. It even has made into Oxford English dictionary.

Jalfrezi is a medium spiced, stir fried dish cooked with veggies, tomato-based sauce and some spices. This is also very popular dish served in every Indian restaurants back home.You can enjoy this with any kind of Indian bread or with rice.

I never cooked with paneer much, but recently I have tried Paneer Makhanwala which hubby and my son enjoyed a lot. So, again I made some fresh paneer the other day and was thinking what else can I make with this. And then hubby said do we have peppers, we can make paneer jalfrezi with this. And I always have colored peppers in my fridge, hence made this for our dinner and needless to say we loved this with some ajwain parathas. My son loved both peppers and paneer, so this is perfect for his portion of  healthy veggies and paneer is excellent source of protein. WIN…WIN… 🙂

Paneer Jalfrezi

Ingredients:

• 2 cups paneer, cubed
• 1/4 cup orange bell pepper, cut in big chunks
• 1/4 cup red bell pepper, cut in big chunks
• 1 green bell pepper, cut in big chunks
• 1/2  red onion, cut in big chunks
• 1 large white onion, grated or puree
• 1/2 cup crushed tomatoes
• 1  1/2 teaspoon chilli garlic sauce
• 1 teaspoon tandoori masala
• 1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder
• 1/2 teaspoon coriander powder
• 1/4 teaspoon garam masala powder
• 2 tablespoon olive oil
• salt to taste

Paneer Jalfrezi

Method:

• Heat oil in a pan over medium high heat, carefully add onions and cook until it slightly turns brown in color.
• Add chilli garlic sauce, crushed tomatoes, turmeric powder, coriander powder, garam masala powder, tandoori masala and salt to taste. Cook on medium heat for about 5-6 minutes.
• Once you see the oil separates out from the sauce, add all the peppers and onion and stir fry for 3-4 minutes.
• Then add paneer and lightly mix everything together.
• Serve hot with paratha or roti. Enjoy!!

Paneer Jalfrezi

Onion and Tomato Focaccia

Focaccia is a flat oven baked Italian bread which is seasoned with olive oil, herbs and other ingredients of your choice. It looks similar to pizza but called Focaccia. The inside texture is soft, and light to touch where as the outside is crispy and golden brown.Since it’s baked at high temperature which gives a crunchy golden brown bottom.You can use focaccia bread dough as pizza dough too or can be used a sandwich breads.

Onion and Cherry Tomato Focaccia

This is the first time I have made bread from the scratch, although I’m not of a yeast-bread baking expert yet but this time this really turned out great and gorgeous looking.

Also, making bread requires a lot of patience and time which is really worth it at the end. Hence don’t try to rush this recipe, give plenty of time to rise. You may have to plan ahead if you are going to bake this bread as it requires at least 2 hours to rise properly. At this stage, it’s good to let it rise for as long as you can. The puffier it gets the more soft it bakes up. Since I am a person who will check every minute or so, to see whether the yeast is working or not, so what I do is I go out for shopping or to the park with my son in this way my dough gets plenty of time to rise without any disturbance and peeking… 🙂

Onion and Cherry Tomato Focaccia

Ingredients:

• 2  1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon honey
• 2 teaspoon dry yeast
• 1 cup plus 2 tablespoon warm water

For topping:

• 1/4 cup grated mozzarella cheese
• 2 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 cup cherry tomatoes, cut in halves
• 1 small red onion, thinly sliced
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed and  minced
• 1/4 teaspoon crushed red chilli flakes
• 5-6 fresh basil leaves, cut in long strips

Directions:

• To make the dough, mix honey and yeast in luke warm water and let it sit for several minutes, until it begins to bubble, that means yeast is working its charm here and you are going to be successful in making a gorgeous focaccia bread.
• Stir together the yeast mixture, salt and flour and mix everything well. Knead by hand for 5-7 minutes, or until the dough forms into a smooth round, still soft and a bit sticky. Coat a big bowl with the tablespoon of olive oil, drop in the dough, and coat with oil all over. Seal the bowl with plastic wrap, and let it rise in a warm place until doubled, about an hour.
• While the dough is rising, toss together the sliced onion, cherry tomato halves, 2 tablespoons of the olive oil, salt, red pepper flakes and keep it aside to marinate.
• Brush a Cookie sheet with olive oil and keep it aside.
• Punch down the dough on a floured surface, roll out  dough into a rectangle,  press the same on oiled brushed baking sheet.
• Brush olive oil over the rectangle shaped dough and set it aside until it gets fluffy, for about 1 hour.
• Make dimples on the dough with your thumb and top with grated mozzarella cheese, marinated onions, fill the dimples with cherry tomatoes halves and drizzle the rest of marinated oil on top of it.
• Bake at 425 until golden, about 20 minutes. Garnish with thinly Julienne basil leaves. And enjoy your slices!!

Onions and Cherry Tomato Focaccia