Curry Quest Series #2 : Malai Kofta

These days, when I browse through Pinterest and my favorite blogs all I see are pictures of delicious turkey, pumpkin pie, cranberry sauce and all things Thanksgiving. I drool over these, and tell myself, although we don't celebrate Thanksgiving, that I should make a pecan-pumpkin pie, or at least bake some Hasselback potatoes, if not a whole roast chicken (turkey still intimidates me). What is the point of being a food blogger if one can't take inspiration from the food that is trending in the season? But laziness got the better of me, and I didn't get anywhere beyond pinning several Thanksgiving recipes to my Pinterest board.

So, today's post is a recipe from my tryst with curry over the weekend. A promise I made to myself, to keep me inspired and get me out of my routine of fail-safe recipes on weekends - I am attempting a curry a weekend, deriving inspiration from recipes from all parts of India.

This past weekend, I went with a recipe that I am very familiar with, Koftas or fried, ball-shaped patties made of Indian cheese (paneer) dunked in a luscious gravy made with tomato pulp and cream.

Malai Kofta

Caramel Tinted Life

Luxurious malai koftas made with paneer and potato balls, dunked in a creamy tomato gravy

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Prep Time 30 mins

Cook Time 25 mins

Total Time 55 mins

Course Main

Cuisine Indian

Servings 6

Ingredients

  

1x2x3x

• For the Koftas:
• 1.5 litre full fat milk
• 1 lemon or 1 tsp white vinegar
• 2 large potatoes boiled and mashed
• 1 tsp garam masala
• 1 tsp turmeric powder
• 1 tsp Kashmiri chilli powder or paprika powder
• 1/2 tsp chaat masala
• 1/2 tsp salt to taste
• Oil for deep frying
• For the Gravy:
• 1 cup tomato pulp or canned tomato
• 1 onion ground to a paste
• 1 tsp ginger paste
• 1/2 tsp garlic paste
• 1 green chilli ground to a paste
• 1/4 tsp turmeric powder
• 1/2 tsp garam masala
• 1/2 cup cream
• 1/2 cup ground almonds or ground cashews
• 1 tsp dried fenugreek leaves methi leaves
• Salt to taste

Instructions

 

• Start by preparing the paneer:
• Cook the milk in a pot with high sides, letting the milk come to a rolling boil
• Add the juice of 1 lime (or 1 tsp vinegar) and reduce heat to a simmer
• Stir the acidic juice/ vinegar and let the milk cook for a minute more
• The milk will curdle and the solids will separate from the whey
• Turn off the heat, and let it cool
• Using a fine meshed sieve (or a muslin cloth),strain the whey from the solids
• The milk solids or paneer, is now ready to be used
• To the milk solids, add the potatoes, and the seasonings listed in the ingredients for the koftas
• Make small lemon-sized balls out of this mixture
• Deep-fry these balls and drain the excess oil on a kitchen napkin
• To prepare the gravy:
• Start by sauteing ginger, garlic and green chilli past in oil in a large saucepan
• Add the turmeric powder, garam masala and continue sauteing for a minute
• Add the onion paste and cook for 3-4 minutes
• Add the tomato pulp and ground almonds, and let this come to a simmer
• Reduce the heat, and the cream and fenugreek leaves and cook for another couple of minutes
• Add salt to taste
• Serve with some freshly made naan, or basmati rice

Notes

The whey can be reserved to be used for cooking pulses or in kneading dough

Have you tried this recipe?Tag me on Instagram! @carameltintedlife or use the hashtag #carameltintedlife