Orange Paneer

Vegetarian Orange Chicken anyone?? Well, I actually don't have that here - but I do have some glistening Sweet and Spicy Orange Paneer. 

FSB Theme for the month was suggested by DK of Chef In You. This was a challenging theme and DK wanted us to prepare something vegetarian that looks like a classic or famous Non Vegetarian dish. When I read that first, I thought – this could be easy..and then I read further. She told us that we could not use any store bought mock meats to prepare the dish. Ok the first three dishes that came to my mind at the beginning just went back to where they were sleeping. Nevermind.

And then a few weeks passed by – I had this thought at the back of my mind that I have not come up with anything yet and time’s slowly running out. And then last Friday happened. Came home from work and was totally inspired to either order pizza or pick up Chinese food. But the big guy in the house was acting a little hyper about cooking up a nice homemade meal..and when I said order Chinese food, he said why not make Chinese food. Really?? Why can’t we both ever think on the same lines? And so he first told me that he’ll make dinner. I was happy. And he told me he wanted the sweet and spicy orange chicken done vegetarian. My heart went thud. Wait. That means I could achieve two things here. The name DK then flashed a few times in my brain. I brushed off my Friday evening laziness and decided I will actually make this sweet and spicy orange chicken – not to please the hungry guy in the house – but because I might have a post for this month’s FSB.  Wink Wink. And to be honest, this has been a dish that my guy has been asking for a while now and I always just veto it because I’m never in the mood for a sweet and spicy thing. But, today I was more than happy to undertake this adventure!

Tofu would have been a great substitute here – but instead, I decided to use Paneer to make this. So, I can tell DK that Paneer really is not fake meat. Right DK? And honestly because I had a big pack of Paneer sitting in my fridge and I was not going out to get tofu just to make this – you never know, I just might end up bringing dinner back. Not a good idea!

So I looked at a few recipes for Orange Chicken and looked at the Panda Express site for some visual inspiration. And also came across this one which was a vegetarian version from Pham Fatale blog. I kind of get an idea and a plan sketched out in my mind. Time for executing the plan. And so I start. I have to tell you though, by the time this was done and we were eating, boy was I glad I cooked at home. Thanks FSB team!! This is now a keeper recipe for me and we have already planned when to make this next!

Enough of all the banter, let me just get to the recipe.
Chop up Paneer into uneven sized chunks. The weirder shaped the chunks are, the better!

In a plate, take about ½- 1 cup of corn flour (corn starch would also work great here). The amount you see here was actually too much – I ended up wasting half of it. So, ½ cup should be sufficient. Add salt to taste and also 1 tsp of red chilli powder for a little spice. Mix the dry ingredients well.

Add the paneer pieces in here and just mix well. 

Sprinkle a few drops of water and just gently toss the paneer in the moist corn flour. You just want to coat the paneer pieces and not really dunk them and make them into bhajjias or pakodas.

Let this sit for a few mins while you get the sauce ready.

Here comes the saucy juicy part! This was fun to do – because I had no clue really and just kind of added everything I had. You should have seen our frightened faces when we were ready to taste the final product.
Let’s start off with the spicy stuff. Chilli Garlic sauce – add about ½ - 1 tbsp of chilli garlic sauce to a mixing bowl.

Then, add ½ tbsp of Chilli Soy sauce or regular Soy sauce to the bowl.

Add ½ tbsp of rice vinegar to the other ingredients.

Follow that with 2 big heaped tbsp of tomato paste.

Throw in some fresh chopped ginger to the paste mix.

And throw in ginger’s favorite partner garlic – chopped into little bits along with the rest.

Now, add the kicker in here – ½ cup of orange juice.

Followed by 1 tsp of brown palm sugar.

And for the real kicker – 2 tbsp of maggi hot n sweet ketchup.

Some last sweet thoughts - a few drops of Honey

And to seal the deal with a little spice – 1 tsp of red chilli flakes or you can use a red chilli asian paste if you have that or even some Sriracha sauce.

Now do you understand that I really had no clue. But don't lose faith in me yet. I won't let you down.

Whisk together all of the ingredients well. Add about 1 cup of water to this sauce and set aside.

Now, fry the corn flour coated pieces of paneer in hot oil and drain excess oil on a sheet and set aside.

Chop up 1 small red onion and also chop up a small bell pepper.

Add the sauce and just enjoy the sizzle.

Cook for 3-4 mins and you’ll start to see the water evaporate.

Meanwhile, in a small mixing bowl, add 2 tsps of corn starch and add ¼ cup water and make into a thin paste.

When the sauce begins to thicken, add in the corn starch paste. You’ll see that the sauce thicken instantly.

Quickly add in the fried paneer pieces to the sauce and mix well. Cook for a min until most of the sauce thickens. If you like it saucy, you can switch off the stove immediately after adding the paneer.

And you’re done people! Now, I don’t know if this looks like the Orange Chicken at Panda’s – but I surely know that it tastes awesome because we finished the whole damn thing in about 15 mins!

Serve with some hot white rice. I actually made ginger flavored rice. I added about 2 tsp of chopped ginger along with the rice and cooked it together. The rice holds a subtle flavor of ginger and it was delicious to eat along with this sweet and spicy Orange Paneer!

Check out here for some of the awesome stuff the FSB gals have come up with – Deepti, Lata, DK, Madhuri, Nags, Siri, Mitu. I’m sure when the hard core non vegetarian look at this, they’re going to finally stop thinking that us vegetarians eat only salads.

Enjoy. Peace Out!

Vegetarian Lettuce Wraps

I've said this before, but sometime I just repeat. Being a Vegetarian in the US is tough business. I mean, when we go out to eat and look at the menu, there are 76 options if you eat meat and there are 4 options if you don't. And out of the 4, 2 are added on the menu by you - like when you ask the restaurant to serve you the Chicken Fettuccine Alfredo without the chicken. Or the Panang curry - with no meat and substitute tofu. Or the great American BLT sandwich without the bacon of course - what's great or American about it after that anyways? 

And one such experience is with the very famous lettuce wraps for appetizers. PF Changs has one of the best lettuce wraps and until recently, they had only the chicken version available. I'm yet to go and try their vegetarian version. But every time we've been there before, and order the food and wait around, I see one of my neighboring tables being served the famous chang's lettuce wraps. And the hungry humans sitting on that table pick up their fresh green lettuce, dump some chicken filling and go crunch munch when I'm sitting there starving for my chowfun and ma po tofu. Not anymore - next time I'm getting my plate of the vegetarian lettuce wraps - hope its worth my wait.

I've been planning to make this for a while now. I wanted to do something new with the soya granules that's been sitting in my pantry for some time. So, if you are a soya chunk or soya granules lover, you will love this recipe. If you're not, its ok - you can still eat a little bit to get your protein in and give your muscles some food too. And its a perfect appetizer to serve when you're cooking Chinese or Asian food. I had invited a friend's family for dinner and had Indian Chinese on the menu and this was of course a part of the meal. 

So, this is what I used. I had about half a packet left and used it all up. This would serve about 6-8 people.

Boil the granules in hot water for about 10 mins and then wash and rinse under water. Wash it thoroughly a couple of times. Squeeze out all the excess water and set aside the cooked soya granules.

In a small mixer, make a paste of all these below -

Onion - half a medium onion - roughly chopped
Garlic - 3-5 single pods.
Ginger - about 1 inch piece - roughly chopped
Coriander seeds - 1 tbsp
Cumin seeds - 1 tbsp
Red Chillies - 3-4

Without any pre cooking, just blend all these together into a raw paste.

In a wide pan, add 2 tbsp of oil. You can use sesame seed or regular vegetable oil. When the oil it hot, add the ground paste to this and start cooking till the raw smell goes away.

Add about 1/2 cup of finely chopped onions to the cooked paste. Saute for a couple of mins.

Now, add the cooked and strained soya granules to this paste. Mix well and cook on medium heat for a few mins.

Now comes the spicing up part. Here, what I added. You can add any kind of flavoring you like to improve the taste.

1/2 tbsp of Chilli garlic sauce

1 tbsp of Soy Sauce

1 tbsp of Chilli Soy

1 tbsp of white vinegar. You can also add a citrus flavor with some lime or orange juice for a citrus soy taste.

Mix well and let this all cook for about 10 mins. Add some salt if you think its needed. The soy provides enough saltiness.

When done, top off with some cut green onions.

Serve warm with some grated carrots and crispy chowmein croutons on the side. This adds a lot of crunch and balance to the soft soya filling.

Cut the stalk off at the bottom of a fresh whole lettuce and gently peel out the whole leaves and place on on top of the other. Refrigerate until you are ready to serve. The cold bland lettuce works great with the warm salty soya filling and the crunchy noodle and carrot offer a welcomed crunch to the appetizer.

Don't let your protein sit away in a pantry shelf. Time to get it out and make it pretty. 

Enjoy. Peace out.