Malai Kofta Curry (Spicy vegetable dumplings in creamy curry)

Being a new mom and with the job on other hand, it is really had for me to get back to the blogging. I finally sat down today as my little one is napping. I wanted to post this recipe from several days and here it comes. This is one of my party potluck recipe, and yes you gussed it right it was a big hit, for those who are calorie conscious,  I share few tips that cut down the calories, hoping they will be helpful to you. 

All you need for the recipe:

(Makes around 30 dumplings)

Can feed around 15people. 

For dumplings:

Paneer grated- 8 table spoons
Boiled or pressure cooked mixed vegetables, I used the following vegetables.

• Potato-2
• Cauliflower-6 florets
• Carrots-3
• Green peas- 1/2 cup

Binding mixture:mix 2tbsp of all purpose flour/corn flour with 20ml of water. 

Salt to taste

oil for deep frying/ ponganalu maker

Green chili- finely chopped-5

For curry

Roasted cashew nuts- 2 table spoons

Cream or half and half milk- 50ml

Tomato- 3large chopped

Onion- 1 chopped

Turmeric- 1tea spoon

Ginger garlic paste 1tbsp

Coconut powder-3table spoons

Red chili powder-2table spoons

Salt to taste

Cumin powder-1tbsp

Coriander powder-1tbsp

Garam masala-1tea spoon

Procedure:

To prepare dumplings:

I pressure cooked all the vegetables for two whistles. Then, drained all the water and saved it to prepare curry, took all the boiled vegetable in a muslin cloth and squeezed all the water out after cooling them. In this process they got mashed real good. 

Now I took all these vegetables in a bowl and added the grated paneer, salt, chopped green chilies and mixed well. It forms a thick dough, just like the roti dough (remember you need to squeeze out the water real good from the vegetables after pressure cooking them, other wise it becomes soggy and you may not be able to fry them)

Heat oil enough for deep frying in a pan and make the dumplings out of the just prepared dough, dip in the corn flour mixture and fry them till they turn golden brown. 

Place the dumplings in the paper towl, to remove any excess oil.

To prepare curry:

Heat 2tbsp of oil in a pan and add cumin seeds, mustard seeds and when they begin to splatter add onion, turmeric and ginger garlic paste. When the onion turn translucent add tomato and cook till tomato is tender. Turn off the stove and grind this mixture to a fine paste by adding some water. Heat the same pan and this mixture back to the pan and cook it till it starts to boil. Make sure you put the lid on as the mixture bubbles and spills a lot. Once the mixture start bubbling add cashew nut paste and cream. Mix throughly, bring this to a boil and add salt, chili powder, cumin powder, coriander powder and garam masala powder. Mix well, taste the mixture, adjust according to your taste. Simmer for 3min and turn off tge stove. Add in the dumplings just before serving the curry. 

Tips:

Now here let me tell you how to cut down the calories in this curry:

You can avoid deep frying the dumplings, by baking them. To the dumpling mixture add 2 egg whites and mix well, prepare the dumplings, and bake them for 20min at 345F. 

To prepare the dumplings in paniyaram/ponganalu maker. Simply dip the dumplings in flour batter and cook them in paniyaram pan under low flame for 3-4 min, keep turning them in between. 

You can avoid cream either by increasing the cashewnut paste or substituting cream with coconut milk 

You can enjoy this yummy curry with anything you like(roti/rice/biryani/tiger rice).

I hope you like my recipe and thank you for taking time to write back to me, I appriciate it. Please come back again. Your DD