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Chilli Paneer is a popular Indo-Chinese dish.

Indian Chinese cuisine also known as Indo-Chinese cuisine, is the adaptation of Chinese seasoning and cooking techniques to Indian tastes through a larger offering of vegetarian dishes.

It requires two stages of cooking - first stage is to deep fry the paneer/cottage cheese and the second stage is to cook the bell peppers/capsicum in soy sauce, red chilli sauce and tomato ketchup gravy.

I use to cook this dish on some special occasions. This is one of my family favourites. Although it requires time and a little effort to cook but its super delicious and therefore at the end all efforts paid off.

Chilli paneer comes with two variants i.e. gravy and dry version.

Dry Chilli Paneer is normally served as starter and Chilli Paneer gravy is normally served with steamed rice or jeera (cumin seeds) rice.

Ingredients

Preparation

• Take 3 tbsp of maida (all purpose flour) in a bowl. Add 2 tbsp of corn flour, 1/2 tsp ginger garlic paste, cumin seeds, red chilli powder and salt into it. Mix it well.

• Add the water slowly to make a smooth batter (batter should be consistency of pancake batter or dosa batter). Mix well with the wired whisk or spoon to get a smooth batter without any lumps.

• Heat oil in a frying pan or a kadai over medium high heat. Oil should be moderately hot.

• Cut paneer into cubes or rectangle, the way you want.

• Dip the paneer pieces into the batter. Gently coat the paneer with batter with the help of a spoon.

• Make sure that paneer is completely covered by the batter from all sides. Then drop the paneer pieces slowly into hot oil in the frying pan. Do not overlap the paneer pieces.

• Let it fry for 2-3 minutes and then turn it around, if you turn it immediately then the batter will not stick to the paneer and will get removed.

• Fry them turning occasionally, until they are very light golden brown. Take them out over paper towel so that the paper soak the extra oil. Fry them in small batches.

• Take 1 tbsp of oil in a pan or a kadai. Add cumin seeds into it. Now add finely chopped green chillies.

• Stir fry on a medium flame for few seconds. Stir occasionally.

• Now add finely chopped onions onto it and cook till they become translucent.

• Now add chopped ginger and sliced capsicum into it. Stir fry capsicum on a medium flame for 4-5 minutes. Stir in between. The capsicum only needs to be slightly cooked.

• Lower the flame then add soy sauce, red chilli sauce, tomato ketchup and salt to taste. Keep in min that soy sauce also contains salt so add accordingly. Mix well.

• Add 1/2 cup to 2/3 cup of water or as per the gravy you want to have and mix well.

• Take 2-3 tbsp of water in a small bowl. Add 1 tbsp of corn flour into it. Mix well to make a smooth paste.

• Lower the flame and add corn flour paste into the gravy. Mix the gravy well so that no lumps are formed.

• Now add fried Paneer into the gravy and cook on a medium flame. Cook it for 7-8 minutes. Stir in between.

• Add chopped spring onions on the top. Mix well.

• Serve it hot with steamed rice or jeera (cumin seeds) rice. You may also garnish it with spring onions before serving.