Happiness, the existence of which we all crave for, and the existence of which we all take for granted as well. The state we all have it, and the state we all miss immensely. It is indeed very surprising that the moment we wake up till the moment we go to sleep, our every thought, our every action and even our every reaction revolve around happiness, and yet we seldom come across the word “I am happy”.
Then I went through the most convenient and relevant source we have today, called the power of internet, to lift my knowledge and number of meaningful words for this article, I realised the topic which I thought atleast in terms of theory very simple, turned out to be as complicated as today’s unkind jigsaw puzzle, or the very restless mind which always has an issue with anything simple. And unfortunately, after going through everything and putting my analysis on trial, the only thing that got lifted was my perplexity.
Finally, the moment arrived, when I gave up on my not so fruitful research just to realise that how this simple word happiness is actually so simple in concept, that with time along with the increasing complexity of our mind, it just becomes out of reach from us. And this is probably the reason, how babies everywhere, no matter in whatever state they are, are the happiest humankinds.
And like every time, for a moment, just an offshoot of the course of things, I again set my mind to find the real happiness. And this time I so found it in the eyes of my 9-year-old son, while he was devouring his two favourite foods ‘Paneer’ and ‘Samosa’ combined in one as ‘Paneer Samosa’ – a much simple, much tasty snack, sure to make ones’ moment and soul filled with real happiness.
Let’s discover the easiest way to create this little piece of happiness.
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Recipe: Paneer Samosa
Preparation Time: Chopping vegetables: 3 minutes (approximately) Kneading dough: 5 minutes (approximately) Cooking Time: Cooking Paneer: Around 15 minutes Frying Samosa: Around 45 minutes Equipment Used: Kadai or wok, Spatula, Strainer, Bowls, rolling pin & board, measuring cup and spoon Yield: 6 Samosas
Ingredients:
- 1 onion
- 2 green chillies
- Few curry leaves
- 1 cup maida or refined flour
- 2 & ¼ teaspoon + 1 & ½ tablespoon rice bran oil
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon sugar
- Water to knead dough
- 200 gm paneer or cottage cheese
- 1/8 teaspoon turmeric powder
Method:
- Clean, peel and slice an onion and chop green chillies. Rinse and keep some curry leaves handy
- In a container or a bowl, take maida. Add 2 teaspoon oil, ½ teaspoon salt and ¼ teaspoon sugar on maida
- Knead dough while adding water as required
- Spread around ¼ teaspoon oil on the dough
- Cover the dough and keep the dough aside
- Mash paneer, and heat a pan in the meantime
- Heat around ½ tablespoon oil once the pan is hot
- Temper curry leaves as soon as smoke comes out from oil
- Fry sliced onion along with chopped green chillies
- Add ½ teaspoon salt and 1/8 teaspoon turmeric powder once the onion is tender
- Stir and mix the ingredients properly
- Add the mashed paneer and spread and mix the paneer with other ingredients with a help of spatula
- Cook for few minutes till all the ingredients are evenly mixed
- Taste and adjust salt if required
- Switch off the flame once every ingredients are evenly spread and cooked
- Transfer the cooked paneer in a different container
- Now shift your focus to the kneaded dough and make lemon size balls out of it
- In the meantime, heat another 1 tablespoon oil in a pan
- Take a dough ball. Flatten the dough ball with a rolling pin and board by pressing the edges to form a disc of around 15 cm diameter
- Cut the disc into halves
- Take one half of the disc and make a funnel out of it. Fill the funnel cooked mashed paneer. Seal the funnel from every side by pressing the edges
- Fry the samosa
- Now take the other half of disc and repeat the same steps
Clean, peel and slice an onion and chop green chillies.
Take 1cup maida or refined flour.
Add 2 teaspoon oil, ½ teaspoon salt and ¼ teaspoon sugar on maida.
Knead dough and spread oil on dough. Cover and keep the dough aside.
Mash the paneer or cottage cheese.
Heat oil in a pan.
Temper oil with curry leaves.
Fry sliced onion and chopped green chillies.
Add ½ teaspoon salt and 1/8 teaspoon turmeric powder.
Add the mashed paneer and mix the paneer with other ingredients.
Cook for few minutes. Taste and adjust salt if required.
Switch off the flame, and transfer the cooked paneer in a different container.
Make lemon size balls out of the dough that was kept aside.
Heat another 1 tablespoon oil in a pan, and in the meantime flatten the dough ball with a rolling pin and board by pressing the edges to form a disc.
Cut the disc into halves.
Take one half of the disc and make a funnel out of it. Fill the funnel with cooked mashed paneer
Seal the funnel from every side by pressing the edges to give the form of Samosa.
Fry the samosa.
Tips:
- Thaw the paneer in advance if the paneer is frozen. Ideally try to use fresh paneer
- Add green chillies as per your taste. You may skip green chilly if you are not comfortable, however green chilly does add to the taste quotient
- You can increase or reduce the quantity of paneer as per your requirement. Also, the leftover mashed paneer can be savoured as it is.
- Alter the quantity of salt as per the quantity of paneer
- You can add chopped tomato too in paneer
- If you are not confident with the amount of water required to knead dough, then add water little by little
- When pressed with hand the flour should take the form after coating the flour with oil, salt and sugar before kneading
- While kneading, do not push yourself too much to make the dough soft. The dough just needs to come together. But knead till the dough comes together
- In this recipe the samosas are not deep fried but shallow fried
- You may add more oil while frying samosas if you think oil is less. I have added another 4-teaspoon oil
- The time required to fry the samosa will be less if they are deep fried. If shallow fried, toss and ensure every side is fried properly
