The inspiration for this week’s LIVE Spice Club “isolation cookery lesson” came from my next door neighbour. We’ve had some pretty glorious weather in the UK this week so I decided it would be a good idea to finally cut the grass. It was long overdue (I am not a big fan of gardening). When I got out in my garden I was greeted by my favourite smell of Summer….the BBQ next door.
I decided I needed to eat something grilled and whilst cutting the grass I mentally raided the fridge to figure out what I could have. My search engine of a brain decided on Paneer Tikka Kebabs. I do impress myself with my own suggestions at times.
Soft & juicy paneer, spicy peppers and onions with a crispy charred skin. Paneer Tikka is delicious. The best thing about this recipe is once you have the marinade down you can sub out the paneer to make anything you like. Prawns, chicken and veggies like mushrooms & courgettes all work really well.
I’m assuming you don’t have a tandoor at home (if you do – I’m totes jealous). If you don’t…you can easily emulate the taste of the Tandoor by cooking them on the BBQ, in a hot oven or even, as I did, on my griddle pan on the hob. If you missed the live cookery class but want to catch up and watch, you can do so by clicking here. Also, if you have any dish suggestions for next week’s live class, comment below or drop me a message on Instagram or Facebook. I would love to hear from you!
Tandoori Paneer Tikka
Ingredients
Paneer marination:
- 225 g paneer cut into 3 cms chunky pieces (you should be able to get about 16 pieces this size out of 1 x 225g pack. I cut 8 pieces super thick pieces which I cut into 16 thinner pieces)
- 2 bell peppers green or red, cut into 3ms chunky pieces; you need 16 pieces
- 1 large onion white or red, cut into 3 cms chunky pieces; you need 16 pieces
- 4 tbsp Greek yoghurt
- 5 cloves of garlic grated
- 4 cms ginger grated
- 1 or 2 green chillies finely chopped, or use chilli powder
- Juice of 1 lime
- 1/2 tsp double concentrate tomato puree optional
- 2 tsp gram flour or you can use plain flour
- 1 1/2 tsp salt or according to taste
- 1 tsp garam masala
- 2 tsp coriander powder
- 1/2 tsp turmeric
- 1 heaped tsp paprika
- 1/4 tsp cumin powder optional
- 1 x black cardamom ground into a powder, optional
- 3 good pinches sun dried fenugreek leaves/kasuri methi, ground into a powder optional
- 2 tbsp oil any variety
Pickled Lime Onion Salad to accompany! For that you will need:
- 1 red onion very thinly sliced
- Juice of 1 lime
- 3/4 tsp sugar
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 3-4 stems fresh coriander, chopped (optional)
- Handful of pomegranate seeds, optional
You will also need:
- 1 x griddle pan or a non stick chapati/crepe pan. You can also cook these in your grill or on your bbq if you like!
- Bamboo or Metal Skewers
- Oil and butter/ghee for cooking
Instructions
How to:
- To make the pickled red onion salad, add all of the salad ingredients to a small bowl and leave aside to pickle.
- To prepare the Paneer Tikka, place all of the "paneer marination" ingredients in a large bowl. Using your hand, carefully mix everything together. Keep mixing until every single piece of paneer, pepper and onion is well coated in the marination. The longer you can leave this marination on, the better (overnight is ideal!).
- If you are using a griddle pan or chapati pan – place it on the hob. Brush 3-4 tbsp oil brushed along its surface and allow to pre-heat on a low temperature. If you are cooking in the oven, pre heat at 220c and line a baking tray with foil, greased with a little oil.
- Skewer on the paneer, pepper and onion pieces. You can use any combination you like – I aimed for 4 pieces of each ingredient per skewer!
- Once each of your skewers are ready, increase the heat of your pan to medium/high. Once hot, place the skewers on the pan along with 1-2 tsp of ghee/butter. Cook for a couple of minutes on each side and then turn. I like to use brush them with a little oil or ghee when they are half way cooked but this is optional. The paneer tikka skewers should be completely cooked and have a nice char all over.
- If you are cooking them in the oven, cook the skewers at 220c for approx 10-12 minutes, flipping them over half way through – I like to use brush them with a little oil or ghee at this point but this is optional! If you would like them to get nice and crispy and charred, switch to the grill setting at the end and grill a further 2-3 minutes.
- Remove from the pan and serve with the pickled lime onion salad or wrap in your favourite Indian flatbread with some yoghurt drizzled over. Enjoy!
Omg these are amazing! Wish I could attach a photo… We’ve treated ourselves to a mini pizza oven to forget about lockdown, so did these tonight on a cast iron griddle pan in the pizza oven and tried out home made naan. Gorgeous! Thank you so much 🙂