Shubho Bijoya Special - 2

The dinner party was to have 15 guests. 

All of them British; well all except for the one from Turkey who joined us last minute.

It was the first time I was cooking for so many guests and more importantly, first time cooking for so many guests who wouldn't be able to handle typical Indian food and yet wanted to experience an  authentic home cooked Indian meal! 

So I did what I would normally do under such circumstances - yelled at the hubby who had specifically mentioned "Indian meal" when inviting the guests. And then hit the panic  button. And then yelled some more at the hubby. 

The centrepiece for the dinner table for the party.
Created with roses from my garden

Finally when the panic subsided, we sat down to discuss a few options. For the sake of my sanity and more importantly since we didn't have utensils large enough to cook for so many people, we decided to order a bulk of the food from the Pakistani restaurant nearby. And we decided I would cook just some of the key dishes in the main course myself. 

I had just two briefs from the hubby -

1. The spice levels had to be almost non existent

2. There had to be atleast one "Curry".

Now each time I speak to one of my Brit neighbours or acquaintances, the conversation always veers towards how much they love our Indian "curry". I know it is meant to be a genuine and sincere compliment but each time I hear it, I have to resist the urge to point out just how utterly preposterous this notion of the Indian curry is. How can a gamut of cuisines, from land of a billion people with 30 odd languages, 1600 plus dialects and a myriad of cultures each with their own food, eating habits and ways of cooking, be clubbed together under an all encompassing, simplistic word called "CURRY"? 

But each time, as I open my mouth to correct this fallacy, I realise that bursting this "curry" bubble would be akin to telling a 3yr old that Santa Claus does not exist. So I grit my teeth and I let it pass with a smile and a nod. But now here I was, being asked to create and serve that one thing that I didn't believe in - a curry! 

I knew that I wanted something creamy, something not-spicy yet filled with mild flavours. So I decided to make Paneer Makhani. I even did a dry run of the recipe and served it to the hubby who is usually always my guinea pig of choice for such experiments. But even after a successful dry run, I wasn't too thrilled - it was too close to the butter chicken we had ordered and it somehow felt more like restaurant food rather than home cooked food. 

So I decided to instead make a richer, creamier version of one of my favourite vegetarian dishes - the simple and wholesome Matar Paneer.  It would be an authentic home cooked dish, and I could jazz it up with some cream to elevate it from it's regular "ghar ka khana" (simple home cooked food) status. I decided to call it the Malai Matar Paneer. 

The curry aka Matar Paneer with cream...

Here is the recipe- 

First what you need is -

250 gms paneer cut into cubes and soaked in water with salt and turmeric

1 onion - chopped fine

1 flat tablespoon grated ginger

1 teaspoon jeera powder

1 teaspoon dhania powder

1 teaspoon Kashmiri chilli powder.

1/4th teaspoon turmeric powder

200 gms (half a can) peeled plum tomatoes

1 large cup frozen peas

A few tablespoons of Full Cream

A little butter

A little roughly powdered cardamom, cinnamon, black pepper, mace, nutmeg, clove.

Now for the preparation -

First heat oil. Add some cumin seeds and the roughly powdered cinnamon, cardamom et al. When they crackle, add grated ginger and fry for a minute or two.

Then add onions and fry till translucent.

Now add the jeera powder, dhania powder, kashmiri chilli powder, turmeric powder, salt and fry for some more time. Then add the tomatoes and fry well till the masalas start leaving oil. Add some sugar to make sure the tomatoes do not leave a sour taste in the mouth. If needed add some salt. After the masalas are well fried well, take them out and blend all together to make a nice smooth puree.

Now heat the puree again and add the peas. Since I use the tiny frozen peas, they hardly take time to cook. So after about 5-7 minutes of cooking, I just add the paneer and cook another few minutes and then add some full cream and let it simmer. And before serving I added a dollop of butter and chopped coriander leaves.

This is what my Malai Matar Paneer looked like

Interestingly this experiment turned out to be a big hit with all my guests at the dinner; it had more people taking second and third helping than the meats on the table and the hubby came back from work the next day to tell me how the matar paneer was a hot topic of discussion next day at lunch as well. I remained quite skeptical about it; I mean how can you take a compliment seriously from a group of people whose idea of Indian food was the totally un-authentic, anglicised curry served in the Bangladeshi/ Indian/ Pakistani restaurants here!

And then I had some of it the next day. I had to admit, it actually tasted bloody good! 

And the irony of it was just as interesting - here I was, a curry hater, eating my own words, rather my own curry!