Every married Pakistani woman's life revolves around one thing - cooking. It's totally besides the point whether she likes to or not, she doesn't have much of a choice. It is every mother's nightmare that her daughter doesn't know or doesn't like to cook.
Last month, my niece from America came to visit me for a month, with instructions from her mother "isey pakana sikha do" (teach her to cook) - as if that's something I can teach her like A, B, C... I did try though, and she was able to make roti (the traditional Pakistani flat bread that is a staple in our diet).
It took me, however, to my early days of marriage when I didn't know how to cook at all. Well, I did know how to make tea and omelette and rice and roti, but mostly I just winged it. I'd tell my husband I was making a surprise dinner and he'd have to eat whatever got made....some days it was chicken nuggets served with spaghetti and pasta sauce, other days I was more creative. All this made me realize that cooking is more about passion than anything else....a passion to create something wholesome and tasty. As long as the passion is there, skills can follow. At least that's how it has been with me. And I'm still learning.
The key is to keep experimenting and liven things up a bit. But most importantly, you need a (very) patient audience who are ready to eat whatever you put in front of them and always respond with an encouraging comment - and I mean ALWAYS. So yes, it's thanks to my husband, mostly, that I still have the passion to try new recipes and not worry about what the response will be. According to him, if the experiment fails, we can always order in. And thank God, during 12 years of experimenting that hasn't happened yet!
So the other day, after having eaten a lot of meaty dishes with guests in the house (I'm a vegetarian at heart), I decided to try some new, vegetarian dish. And I found the perfect recipe on Pinterest. Perfect in the sense that all ingredients were at hand. So I made Karhai Paneer, with my own variation of course.
Here's the recipe:
Karhai Paneer
(cottage cheese cubes with capsicum and onions in tomato sauce, cooked in a wok)
250 gm cottage cheese, cubed, fried in 1 tsp oil until light golden
Onion, 1/2 cup, cubed
Capsicum, 1/2 cup, cubed
6 tomatoes, seeds removed and finely chopped
1 green chilli, slit in the middle
1 tsp coriander seeds, toasted and coarsely pounded
1 tsp dried fenugreek (kasuri methi)
1 tsp ginger/garlic paste
1/2 tsp red chilli flakes
1/2 tsp coriander powder
1/4 tsp turmeric powder
Salt, to taste
Oil, 2 tbsp
Heat oil in a wok and add ginger/garlic paste. Once that is fried, add the tomatoes and cook over medium flame for 2-3 minutes. Turn heat to low, cover and cook until tomatoes are soft and mushy. Mash them up with the back of a spoon to form a sauce-like consistency. Add salt, turmeric, coriander powder and red chilli flakes and continue cooking for 2-3 minutes with the lid removed. Once some of the water has dried, add in the onion, green chilli and capsicum, cover and cook for 5 minutes. Then remove the lid and continue cooking until oil separates. Add in the cottage cheese (paneer) and stir until it is well coated with the tomato sauce. Remove from heat. Sprinkle dried fenugreek and roasted coriander before serving.
Serves 4; best eated with roti.
My variation: I added 2 tbsp cooking cream before adding in the cottage cheese. This lightened the spiciness and softened the tartness of the tomatoes.
Do leave a comment if/when you do try this recipe.
