Cheese curd with Indian spices and yogurt

 This is from my wife’s new Indian cookbook called “Thali” by Maunika Gowardhan. Since my wife made cheese curd (paneer) to use up milk approaching its expiration date, she decide to try this recipe. It is called “Achari Paneer Tikka” but as usual, some of the ingredients were not available such as nigella seeds and particularly “gravy and oil” from “store-bought Indian green chili pickles”. We couldn’t even imagine how this should taste so we improvised using the pickling liquid from a jar of capers. We have no idea how this may have changed the end product but it clearly didn’t “hurt” it. Also we pan fried the paneer rather than grilling it. It came out rather nicely (below) with a brown crust.

Ingredients: (#1 below)

Paneer cut into inch size pieces (#2) below
2 garlic cloves roughly chopped

1 inch ginger root  roughly chopped

1 Tbs. coriander seeds

5 Tbs. greek yogurt

1 tsp. ground turmeric

1/2 tsp. garam masala

2 tsp. of pickling liquid from a jar of capers

salt to taste

Directions:

Blend the garlic and ginger in a small blender to make a smooth paste. (We used garlic and ginger paste from a tube.) Mix the garlic ginger and other spices into the greek yogurt (#3). Add the paneer cubes and coat them in the marinade (#4). Let them marinate for a least an hour. 

To cook: put a little oil in a frying pan. Add the paneer and marinade. Cook the pieces, turning them occasionally until the pieces get browned on the surface. 

This was a good variation on just plain paneer. The pieces had a nice crunchy, spicy crust and were soft inside. The flavor got even better over time with the pieces stored in the refridgerator. They toasted up well in the toaster oven and the crust got crispy again.