TOASTING THE TIKKA WITH A SHERBET…COTTAGE CHEESE, CHICKEN & POMEGRANATE!!

Deeba @ PAB

16 years ago

“The art of dining well is no slight art, the pleasure not a slight pleasure”

Michel De Montaigne

Strange bedfellows one might say…cottage cheese, chicken & pomegranates. Common ground surprisingly exists in the form of Indian cuisine. The sun is blazing hot again & summer doesn’t want to go away. Grilling or barbequing food makes for lighter fare in this weather; is a big hit always. This is going to be part 1 of the post as my menu ran too long. I marinated cottage cheese / paneer cubes in 2 different marinades, boneless chicken bits in a creamy marinade. Decided to make some more leavened Indian bread (the third in the series I decided to try out in my lovely black box), had a delicious bowlful of dal makhani saved up from the previous day…& then made saffron kulfi to finish off the meal. PHEW…sounds like a long list, but was done in bits & bobs. And oh yes, forgot to mention the anaar ka sherbet / pomegranate cooler that I made too. That I did the previous day because I chanced upon some juicy pomegranates & couldn’t resist picking ’em up! Right then, here we go…

Paneer Tikka / Grilled Cottage Cheese

Ingredients:

Cottage cheese – 1 kg / cubed into 1″ chunks

Yogurt – 1 cup ; hung

Ginger-garlic paste – 1 tbsps

Oil – 1 tbsp

Juice of 1 lime

Paprika for half & coriander/mint/green chili paste for the other

Salt to taste

Chaat masala for sprinkling

Green chutney to serve (recipe posted here)

Bell peppers, onions etc to serve

Method:

Whip the yogurt with ginger-garlic paste + oil + lime juice + salt.
Add paprika to 1/2, & coriander-mint-green chili paste to the other. ( I add some green chutney to save time; adjust the salt if you do so).
Leave to marinate for about 30 minutes (or more) in the fridge. Toss the veggies in a little olive oil.
Put all the above on a hot grill & turn to ensure all sides nicely browned. Sprinkle lightly with chaat masala if desired. Serve with a green chutney & lime wedges.
Skewer with the veggies serve immediately.
Note: Cottage cheese tends to get a bit hard if grilled & left for later. It tastes wonderful freshly grilled!

Here’s the ‘Chicken Malai Tikka’. Made with the recipe I found at Pearls of East @ ‘Any One Can Cook’. A yummy creamy chicken tikka…eat it right off the grill to enjoy the moist, rich flavours. The recipe can be found here. I marinated this overnight; just makes life a lot simpler the next day!!

And to cool off my frayed nerves after being far too ambitious, there was nothing better than a glass of chilled ‘anaar ka sherbet’. The grenadine or pomegranate concentrate can be made in advance & refrigerated. We had it diluted with icy water & a squeeze of lime. You can perk it up by adding some sparkling lime water to it; grenadine is a great base for cocktails, mocktails & desserts too. Quite easy to make…
Anaar Sherbet / Pomegranate Cooler

Deseed 2 pomegranates. Put the seeds in a pan with 1 1/2 cups of water, add 8 tbsps sugar. Bring to a boil & simmer for 5 minutes till flesh is soft (will turn light pink). Cool & push the syrup through cheesecloth. Pour the concentrate into a bottle & refrigerate. Dilute as required & use as a base for a cooler.

Grenadine is traditionally a red syrup. It is used as an ingredient in cocktails, both for its flavor and to give a pink tinge to mixed drinks. “Grenadines” are also made by mixing the syrup with cold water in a glass or pitcher, sometimes with ice. The name “grenadine” comes from the French word grenade meaning pomegranate, as grenadine was originally prepared from pomegranate juice, cherry juice, and sugar.

The ‘khameeri roti’, or leavened flatbread, & ‘saffron kulfi’ recipe shall follow soon. The ‘dal makhani’ was the good old Jugalbandits recipe which I posted here!

Bon Apetit!!

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