Raki´s Mater Paneer, Bihar India

 I just got back to my Charity -A Bowl of Compassion- in Bodhgaya,India.The past 2 weeks have been very exciting and blissful. My good friend Sheny from Mexico and me have raised money to buy warm clothes and shoes for all our schoolchildren. We have been very busy visiting the villages, contacting friends and family to help the children out for the cold winter. We successfully accomplished our mission and all children are with war clothes now 🙂 Our next huge goal is to raise funds to buy a piece of land and build a small school for the girls at the Flowers of Lakshmi school in Karma Village. For that we still need 5850 Euros in total and we are hoping to reach more people that help us getting closer to our big goal. If you are interested in helping out, please check out our facebook page or A Bowl of Compassion e.V or visit

www.bowlofcompassion.org

These are the children after they have received their new shoes and socks 🙂 Iam excited to see how much money we can raise in the following months.

After a working day like today we are usually really hungry and cant wait to get back home to have some good and authentic indian food. Home cooked of course 🙂

 When our A Bowl of Compassion staff Rakhi heard that i am collecting recipes  from all over the world she smiled all over her face and offered to teach me a vegetarian dish for my collection. I accepted that offer of course 🙂 Rakhi is teaching the children at our primary school since last year and she is doing a great job. I wanted to know what dish she can teach me. The next day after all children left school we met for cooking. Raksi wanted to show me one of her favourite dishes called ” Mutter Paneer” ( Paneercheese with fresh Peas). Nice!! I wrote everything down and took the pictures for you. Here is an authentic norther indian dish straight from a home in India!

Here is Rakhi´s recipe:

 Mutter Paneer

 Ingredients:

 around 1 tablespoon Cuminseeds

a 1 inch piece of ginger, chopped

3 garlic cloves garlic, roughly chopped

2 big cardamons, opened

2green chilis, chopped roughly

half tbsp black pepper

1-2 green chili, sliced

1 onion chopped

2 big red tomatos, diced

1 cup of fresh peas

1 tbsp tumeric

1tbsp garam masala

half tbsp red chili powder

1cup of water

dash of cream

200-250g fresh indian paneer cheese

 

And this is how Raki did it 🙂

 -Add some vegtable oil to a pan or a wok and wait until its hot.

-Then add green the cumin seeds and fry them for a minute

-Add then the ginger, green chillies, garlic and cardamon.

-Stir the spicemix and let fry for 1-2 minutes before adding the onion.

-keep frying the whole mix until it softens and add some salt to it.

-Now add the diced tomatos and fry for another 3-4 minutes. Stir!

-Then take the spice mixture out of the wok and pour into a blender.

-Next: Grind into a smooth paste. This will be your spice base for this dish.

After this it´s time to sautee the paste.

Add some oil to a hot pan and add the paste into it.

Let it reduce and add garam masala powder,turmeric and the red chilli powder.

Keep stiring from time to time.

Add water!

Depending on how thick you want your gravy you can decide how much water you pour onto the paste now.

Let it simmer for some minutes to intensify the flavour.

Now add your fresh peas and cubed paneer cheese and let it it simmer

for another 5 minutes. The peas should still have a bit of crunch. Rakhi fried the paneer golden brown before she added it to the gravy, but you dont have to do that.

 Turn the heat off and add a dash of double whipped cream.Stir!

Now have a taste. If you like it start plating the dish.

Sprinkle some fresh coriander leaves and roasted cashewnuts on the dish before you serve it.

 This dish is great with some chapati bread! I loved it!! Enjoy cooking!

 Iam sending you many greetings from India

 Your Foodvagabond

Michael