I made this Capsicum and Corn in Tomato Gravy last night for dinner. The original recipe by Shobha Indani uses "malai" but I used regular whole milk instead. Malai is clotted cream - the thick layer that forms on top of the milk after you boil it and let it cool. A lot of gravy recipes using malai for the taste and texture can be substituted with heavy cream.
This Shimla Mirch aur Makai Sabzi recipe also suggests adding a few cubes of paneer if you wish. So if you add heavy cream and paneer to this Corn and Capsicum dish, it qualifies as party food or the kind of sabzi you would cook for guests.
Halve the quantities and cook this Corn and Capsicum Curry today. Give this dish a try and tell me if you like it and if you think it qualifies to be served when you have guests over for dinner?
2. Add tomato puree + salt, mix well, cover and leave 1-2 minutes. When tomato puree appears cooked (starts to thicken and reduce), remove pan from heat to add ¼ cup milk. Removing pan from heat + stirring continuously when adding milk = avoid curdling. Add ¼ cup water and adjust the gravy to your desired consistency using more milk or more water. Mix well and let cook 1-2 minutes.
3. Capsicum is cooked when it is tender enough to cut into two pieces when pressed with the cooking spoon. Corn and Capsicum curry is ready to be eaten with chapati. Mix part of the chopped cilantro in the curry and keep the rest for garnish. If you decide to use paneer in this corn-capsicum sabzi, I suggest you to sauté ½ cup cubed paneer in oil or ghee and keep on absorbent paper, and then add the paneer pieces to the dish just before serving. Garnish with the remaining cilantro and serve hot and delicious Corn and Capsicum in Tomato Gravy.
this combo can never go wrong! few things are so good together and this is def one of them..great lighting for night photos nisha!
Very nice info given in this blog.We are Luxury Hotels in Haridwar. We always provide excellent, professional service to our customers and our focus is on the customer facility.We provides our guests with absolutely superior quality food.
It had been a month and half since I came to Bangkok and had not cooked anything special for my family except baking cakes a couple of times. So yesterday I cooked the entire dinner from appetizer to dessert for my family for the first time. I had major butterflies in my stomach if they'd like my food as much as others always did, but the dinner turned out great.
I thought of making my trusted Strawberry Lemonade that I knew everyone would have loved but damn, strawberries and blueberries are so expensive in Bangkok! Besides, I had brought these pineapple straws from California so I decided to make something with pineapple. I started the dinner with Virgin Piña Colada. I blended Pineapple + Coconut Milk + Granulated Sugar + a teaspoon of pineapple extract. My secret for this recipe: pineapple extract. It adds the flavor and aroma boost that a natural pineapple cannot.
For appetizer I served Samosa Bowls - it is samosa with a twist. Couple of years back I had made Potli Samosa, but that's a pretty common way so I came up with this new idea of serving samosa. Instead of filling inside the regular triangle shape, I fried the dough in shape of a bowl a day beforehand and filled it with the potato and peas stuffing, served with chutneys.
Then the buffet style table was arranged, starting with salad. For this, I cut cucumber in large pieces, scooped out the insides from them without going all the way through, filled it with a garlic yogurt dip, served with julienne tomato and carrot sticks. The carrot was boiled in salted water beforehand and chilled. My recipe for the dip: whisk minced garlic + olive oil, to it add hung curd (greek yogurt) + salt + red chili powder and mix well, let chill in refrigerator few hours for flavors to blend well before serving.
For the main course there was Laccha Paratha and Kadhai Paneer (pictured below), Mughlai Biryani (above), and my usual awesome Grapes and Walnut Raita. I like to have a one roti-one sabji-one rice-one rice accompaniment concept for my dinner. However, my family is used to making various sabjis and several desserts and excess food during parties, so yes - my grandfather did ask if there was more than one!
Papad is a regular at Marwari households, although I'm not too fond of eating papad with every meal. But instead of roasting or frying a round papad I served them as Papad Cones filled with Mango Cucumber Salsa. Papad was cut in semi-circle and roasted on pan on both sides and quickly twisted to form a cone shape. My salsa recipe: mango chunks + cucumber chunks + cilantro + salt + black pepper powder + lemon juice. The mango, cucumber, and cilantro were ready in a bowl and the salt, pepper, lemon juice was mixed in just before serving, otherwise mango and cucumber would have become soggy and released water.
For dessert I prepared my layered Vanilla and Chocolate Pudding. The chocolate layers were cooked with a few pinches of instant coffee powder and there was a layer of chopped nuts in between.
And I had everyone gather around the dining table as I presented and served my Eggless Crater Chocolate Cake as the grand finale. Watch my video here!
I couldn't make everything as planned, there were a couple of more dishes I had in mind (with twin babies to take care of, I don't think I could have done any more than this!), but all the items that I prepared my family praised my food and my presentation. And with that - I am more than happy!
Wonderful dishes and wonderful presentation, I would like to invite my husband's cousins over for thanksgiving dinner and would like tips on how you planned to cook. Did you make everything on the day of dinner and had few dishes prepared ahead? Once I tried to cook for my husband's birthday and invited friends over and it was a total disaster :( I would like to get tips on how to plan the cooking.
Kudos for all you did with twins :) I am really surprised to know you had few more in mind to make...phew
Prepare as much as you can ahead of time. Freeze, fry, bake, chop, blend, cook, refrigerate, mix, do everything that is possible in installments for different dishes beforehand that will not spoil or get soggy until party day. I like to have a relaxing, entertaining meal with family and friends instead of getting exhausted doing it all within one day.
On a paper I wrote my menu, drew how I want it presented, short notes on what preps needed and one at a time finished whatever I could, starting with preparing the layered pudding 2 days ahead, the samosa filling and fried samosa bowl one day ahead, etc.
Thanks Deepali! I am at my parents' place so thankfully my Mom and babysitter take great care of the babies in my absence so I can get more work done :)
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