Bengali Chenar Korma is a delicious vegetarian side dish with no onion no garlic, that means you can easily add this recipe to your "sattvic" diet and you know what is the great part of this recipe- you can enjoy it both with rice and roti.
From the childhood I am a big foodie and love to explore various kinds of food. I believe that most of the foodies are also love to cook and there is no exception for me. I can remember in my childhood we used to kept Bengali " Bartaman" newspaper only in Saturday along with other papers only to get those amazing recipes published on the Saturday special issue " Chatusparni". Me, my mother and sister we all are used to write down those recipes in my mom's diary, though very few of them we actually made it 😝. But it was fun.
With the ages my love and passion for cooking grew and it got the full kick when I came to Melbourne after almost 2 years of my marriage. After coming here I started to invest my time in my passion "cooking" and started to do experiment with my cooking and prepare various kinds of food- specially Bengali cuisine as I grew up enjoying our Bengali delicacies.
Now why is my first blog is about Chenar Korma- nothing else chena or paneer was my all time favourite veg item that I can eat all days of the week. So I thought it will be the best recipe to start with.
Preparation of chena is quite easy, all you have to do is boil the milk (Full cream milk will be better for this but today I prepare the chana with low fat milk and it comes out well. So any type of milk will work fine). For 1 cup of chena 1 litre of milk will be sufficient.Be sure to kept eye on the boiling milk and stir continuously otherwise the bottom of the pan will burn. When the milk will reach the boiling point, slow down the flame, add white vinegar (2-3 tbsp) or lemon juice (juice of 2 medium sized lemon) to the milk and stir slowly. After 2 or 3 minutes the milk will cuddle up and Voila!!! your chena is ready. Just strain the liquid from it but don't throw. It will be used in the gravy.
In Bengal chana is used in various kind of food specially in making most of the sweets like "Rasogolla" "Chenar Payes" "Rasmalai" etc. It also used to make various mouth watering vegetarian dishes like "Chenar polau", " Chenar Kofta","Chenar Rasa", "Chenar korma"etc. So today I present you my first cooking blog- "Bengali Chenar Korma"
Bengali Chenar Korma:
Serves:2
Preparation time: 30 min
Cooking time: 20 min
Ingredients: For Cottage Cheese balls:
1 cup Chana
2 tbsp Flour or Maida
1/2 tbsp Green chilli paste
1/2 tbsp Ginger paste
1 pinch Garam Masala
Salt and Sugar to taste
1 tsp Ghee
Oil for Frying
For Gravy :
2 tbsp Green Chilli Paste
1 tbsp Ginger paste
3 tbsp Curd beaten well
2 tbsp grind coconut
1/4 th cup Green Peas blanched
1 tbsp Kashmiri Red Chilli powder
1 tsp turmeric powder
1/2 tbsp Garam Masala
1/2 tbsp Ghee
2 tbsp Cooking oil
1 stick Cinnamon ,2 Cloves, 2 cardamom for tempering
Salt and Sugar to taste
Recipe:
In a mixing bowl add all the ingredients except oil for making the cottage cheese balls. Knead well until dough like consistency formed.
Take the small portion of the dough and give shape as per your liking- round oval or rectangular anything will be fine.
Shallow fry the balls until golden brown from all the side. Kept aside.
Now in a pan heat up the oil over medium high heat and add all the tempering to the oil. Stir about 5-10 seconds until all the aroma from whole spices come up.
Add ginger, green chilli paste- cook over high heat for a few minutes. Add turmeric, kashmiri red chilli powder, a little bit of salt and sugar. Fry for 2 to 3 minutes, add a splash of a water to prevent burning of the spices.
Now add beaten curd, coconut and cashew paste and stir well. Bring the temperature of the stove up to lowest point, add little bit of water, cover the pan and allow spices to cook for 5-10 minute until all the raw smell of the spices gone and oil releasing from the mixture. You can add splash of water if the mixture begin to stick on the bottom of the pan.
Now add the blanched green peas. Bring the temperature of the stove moderate high. Stir for 2 minutes add about 1 cup of hot water fort he gravy
Cover the pan and wait for the gravy to come to its boiling point. After the gravy thicken a little bit add the fried chena ball. Slow down the temperature add sugar and salt as per the liking. Cover the pan with lid. After 4-5 minutes you can see the oil come over the top of the gravy and the gravy become thick.
Now add ghee and garam masala.Stir well. Turn off the heat. Kept the pan covered with lid at least 5 minutes for all the amazing smell of ghee and garam masala absorbs in the gravy.
The "Chenar Korma" is ready to be served. Enjoy this with steamed rice, roti, even Bengali Polau or paratha also go well with this.
Comments