Paneer, Kasoori Methi Poori

Fried Indian bread with the goodness of cottage cheese and some dried fenugreek, can be eaten as a breakfast, lunch or an evening snack. Tastes best as is or with chutneys, pickles and a bowl of fresh yogurt, freid  green chilli goes without saying!! Here goes my recipe.....

Ingredients
Whole wheat flour as per need
1/2 cup of semolina
200 gms of grated cottage cheese/ paneer
3 tspns of crushed kasuri methi
3 grated gooseberries/ amla
1 tspn of jeera powder
2 tspns of crushed green chilli
Salt to taste
No need of oil while making the dough since the paneer would be giving you the required oiliness

Method

In a large mixing bowl take all the ingredients other than the wheat flour, add whet flour stage by stage as you mix the dough, we are not using any water so the flour needs to be added to make a tight dough for pooris/fried Indian bread. Once the dough is made, leave it to rest for about ten minutes. Now make small balls, roll them out and fry them in oil as shown in the picture. Your dish is ready to savour with any of the above mentioned accompaniments.

                   
                                                                           Kadabu

That is the name given to this awesomely delicious sweet preparation from North Karnataka. Offered to the Elephant God Ganesha. The story goes that he ate 21 of these kadabus and went on a ride home on his vehicle The Mouse. He fell down because the little mouse could not bear his weight!! It was night and there was the Moon who burst out into a laughter seeing this. Lord Ganesha got furious and cursed the moon saying that people who looked at him on that particular day would get into trouble!!

 So we too eat many of these with lots of home made clarified butter during the festival and sleep away. Here goes the recipe for the same......

For the stuffing
1 cup of bengal gram lentil, soaked for 8 hours and pressure cooked to three whistles, water should be just enough for the lentil to submerge.
1/2 cup grated jaggery
1/4 nutmeg grated
6 strands of saffron
1/2 tspn of green cardamom powder
1 tspn of poppy seeds dry roasted

For the dough
2 cups of wheat flour
1/4 cup semolina
4 tbspns of oil
 1/4 tspn of salt

Oil for frying the Kadabus

Method

Make the dough like we make for pooris with the dough ingredients mentioned above, keep to rest till you get the stuffing ready.

Once the lentil is cool enough add all the ingredients except the saffron strands and poppy seeds, make a ground paste. Now in a pan transfer the paste,  add the saffron and poppy seeds, stir on low flame till it becomes a semi dry mixture. See that the consistency is such that the stuffing will not moisten the dough and break in the oil while frying.  Keep ready.

Now make small balls out of the dough, roll out each, stuff enough mixture, close and make folds the way I made them in the picture. Fry on medium flame to a nice crisp golden colour, enjoy with home made clarified butter.