Paneer Korma and Chai Panna Cotta

Recipe for Paneer Korma and Chai Panna Cotta, served by Déwald & Heidi on 10 Jul 2013.

Main:
Paneer Korma

Dessert:
Chai Panna Cotta with Spiced Orange Coulis

Guest Grubbers:
Pieter Louw and San-Mari Louw

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Recipe

Paneer (Indian Cottage Cheese):

• Bring 1l Full Cream Milk to the boil in a saucepan. Don't even bother with any of that "low fat", "skim" or "2%" rubbish. Cheese is basically the fatty part of milk so low fat milk = virtually no cheese.
• Add 1/3 cup vinegar to the milk and simmer for 2-3 minutes until the milk has curdled completely, stirring constantly. Lemon juice can be used in stead of vinegar and it would probably be a good idea, or at least a little less vinegar, as I felt our paneer had a little too much of a sour taste.
• Remove from heat and pour liquid through a cheesecloth in a colander to strain off the curdled milk fats from the liquid.
• Leave until the water (it's actually called "whey") has drained completely and then remove from the colander, fold the cheesecloth over the paneer and put something heavy on top of it to press. A cutting board with a pile of your heaviest cooking books piled on top will do nicely.
• Leave to press for 3 hours before opening up and cutting the cheese.

The whey can be used again to curdle the next batch or it can be used for making dough for paratha bread but we did none of that so just chucked the whey.

The above recipe would serve 2-4 but we multiplied by 3.


Korma:

• Coarsely grind 1 teaspoon crushed ginger, 3 cloves of garlic and 2 green chillies.
• Add spices to 1 cup plain yoghurt along with a pinch of turmeric powder, 1½ teaspoon flour and some salt. Mix with 1 cup water and set aside.
• Roast paneer to give it a golden brown colour.
• Heat sunflower oil in pan, add 2 bay leaves, 4 cloves, 3 green cardamom pods (crushed) and a few whole black peppercorns.
• When the spices give off a nice fragrance add yoghurt mixture and cook on low heat for 2-3 minutes.
• Add paneer and mix through.
• Add 1 teaspoon garam masala and 75ml coconut milk, mix through and cook until heated through. Do not allow the mixture to boil at this stage.

This recipe serves 2-3 but we multiplied by 3.


Chai Panna Cotta:

• Soak 3 gelatine leaves in cold water to soften.
• Add 500ml cream and a squirt of vanilla extract to a saucepan and bring to a simmer.
• Mix in Chai powder (4 teaspoons) . Hardcore chai panna cotta chefs (if there is such a thing) will probably mix the chai spices themselves but I'm much too clueless for that. We used this stuff.
• Squeeze as much water as you can from the soaked gelatine leaves and add the gelatine to the saucepan. Remove from the heat and stir continuously until all the gelatine has dissolved.
• Pour into moulds (I used espresso cups) and leave outside to cool down.
• As soon as the cups are no longer hot to the touch, cover with cling film to avoid the formation of a skin on the top and leave to set in the fridge.
• When plating up, let the moulds stand in boiled water for 10-20 seconds. This allows the outer layers of the panna cotta to dissolve again so that when you turn the mould into a plate, the dissolved panna cotta will give the moulded panna cotta a nice runny coating.

This recipe is enough for about 4 servings but I had my calculations all wrong and made roughly 3 times as much. That's not a bad thing either, as long as you like your own panna cotta enough to be willing to eat it for the next week.


Spiced Orange Coulis:

• Mix the juice of 3 oranges, zest of one orange and 4 tablespoons sugar in a small saucepan.
• Add spices to taste. I used some star anise, allspice berries and cloves but have no idea how much of each. Just wing it, that's what I did.
• Simmer this mixture over medium heat to reduce it to a thick runny consistency.
• Add 1 tablespoon unsalted butter and stir in until dissolved.

This makes about half a cup of coulis which is more than enough for the purposes of garnishing the panna cotta. I would say that the taste of it was a little lost though so you might want to consider not melting the outer layer of panna cotta and rather use more orange coulis.