Chilli Paneer

Vegetarian Chilli Paneer is the modified version of non-veg. recipes like chilli chicken to give its mouth watering wonderful taste replacement. This Indo-Chinese style recipe, served as side dish, and starters in marriage parties and celebrations. It is a great appetizer, very tasty and healthy food.

It is very easy to prepare and cook. The main ingredients of the recipe is paneer (Indian cottage cheese).

Chilli Paneer Ingredients:

Major: 

• Paneer (Indian cottage cheese)
• Oil for deep fry

Minor

• 2 tsp chopped garlic (lehsun)
• 2 tsp chopped celery
• 2-3 green chillies
• 1 tsp grated ginger ( adrak)
• 1/3 cup chopped onions
• 1/4 cup capsicum
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 tsp oil
• 1 tsp cornflour mixed with 2-3 tsp lukewarm water
• salt to taste

For the Batter

• 1/4 cup cornflour
• 1/4 cup plain flour ( maida)
• 1 tsp soy sauce
• pinch of baking powder
• salt to taste

Step by step preparation of Chilli Paneer. 

1. If you like your chilli paneer to be bright red in color, you will have to use either food color or red chili paste.To make red chili paste, add ½ tsp sugar, ½ tsp oil, ½ tsp kashmiri chili powder or paprika to a bowl. Stir well, add few drops of water and make a thick paste. Keep this aside till we need it.
2. Add 3 tbsp. corn flour, salt, 2 pinches of pepper powder to a bowl. Make a thick batter adding water as needed.
3. Add paneer to the batter and coat them well with batter. If you like, you can also marinate paneer with ½ tbsp chilli sauce, ¼ tbsp soya sauce and add dry flour to the paneer and just toss. I added a bit of red chilli sauce to the batter to get a nice color. That’s optional.
4. Heat a pan and fry them on a medium high flame. It can be grilled, tawa fried, shallow fried or deep fried. Spread them evenly while frying else they stick to each other.
5. Stir well and fry evenly until the flour dries up. You may not get the golden color if you have not used chili sauce.
6. Drain them on a kitchen tissue. Transfer the oil to a cup and retain very little in the pan. Add garlic and saute until they smell good.
7. Switch the flame to high. Add onions, spring onions greens, capsicum, sliced and deseeded chilli. Saute on a high flame till they are slightly cooked but still crunchy.
8. Add soya sauce, vinegar, red chili sauce, red chili paste we made at step 1 for the color (optional).
9. Add 2.5 tbsp water and allow the sauces to bubble and thicken. For the restaurant style glossy look add half tsp of cornflour with 2.5 tbsp. water to a bowl. Stir well and pour it to the pan. You can even skip using corn flour, the smooth feel of sauce and the glaze will be missing.
10. Add paneer, spring onions and toss on a high flame for 1 to 2 minutes. Next Add 1 tsp corn flour, pinch of salt, half cup of water to a bowl. Stir well to break any lumps. Taste this, it must be slightly salty. You can also add a tsp tomato ketchup. Pour the mixture to the pan. Stir well. The mixture comes to a boil and thickens, add paneer. Switch off the stove. Adjust more or less water, corn flour, salt as needed to get make more gravy.
11. Garnish chilli paneer with spring onions.

Try our other Veg. recipes.