Cottage Cheese in Hot Garlic Sauce | How to make Hot Garlic Sauce at home | IndoChinese Cuisine | Stepwise Pictures

Hi Supermoms,

IndoChinese Cuisine is extremely popular cuisine enjoyed by Indians not only in India, but also abroad. This cuisine is believed to be created by the Chinese who were living in Calcutta (Kolkata) more than 100 years ago. They created a fusion of their staple noodles and rice along with the locally available spices. 

In short, it is a very tasty cuisine and quite easy to cook too. I always feel the preparation time is more than the cooking time in this cuisine as plenty of vegetables are used .

So if you are going to make an Indese dish, then do allot sufficient time for chopping/grating the vegetables. In this dish, I actually wanted to use Tofu, but as I did not have it in my pantry, I substituted it by Paneer/cottage Cheese. Batter fried Paneer is dunked into a spicy and mildly sweet sauce. It is a perfect accompaniment to Burnt garlic Rice and Hakka Noodles. 

Cottage Cheese in Hot Garlic Sauce :

Preparation Time : 20 minutes

Cooking time : 20 minutes

Serves: 4

1 cup = 250 ml cup

Special Equipment/vessel: A wok/pan, ladle

Note : You can use ginger garlic paste( ready made) also. You can use readymade pepper powder too.

Ingredients:

200 gms of Cottage Cheese/Paneer OR Tofu

oil for frying

For the cottage cheese batter:

2 tablespoons cornflour ( starch)

1 tablespoon all purpose flour/maida or glutenfree flour

1/2 teaspoon soy sauce

1/2 teaspoon grated ginger

2 garlic pods ( grated)

3 to 4 peppercorns ( finely crushed) 

salt to taste

For the Hot Garlic Sauce :

2 tablespoon cornflour 

15 garlic pods ( grated finely )

2 long dry red chillies ( deseede and chopped finely)

1 spring onion ( slice them thinly length wise , finely chop the stem, leaves and use it for garnish)

1 tomato ( deseed and slice length wise )

1/2 capsicum/bell pepper ( deseed and slice lengthwise)

4 tablespoon tomato ketchup

2 teaspoon red chilli sauce

1 teaspoon soy sauce

2 -3 peppercorns ( finely crushed) 

 pinch of sugar

1 teaspoon vinegar

2 tablespoons of oil 

salt to taste

Method:

1. Cut cottage cheese into cubes.

2. In a bowl add all the ingredients given under'cottage cheese batter', add water little by little to make a thick batter.

3. Dip the paneer cubes in the batter.

4. Heat oil in a wok/pan and when the oil starts to smoke, fry them till they are golden brown on both sides.

TIP: To check whether the oil is ready, just fry a little drop of batter. If the batter instantly sizzles and comes to the surface of oil, your oil is ready for frying. 

5. Drain them and keep it aside.

Let's now prepare the 'Hot Garlic sauce':

1. Mix cornflour in 1/4 cup of water so that no lumps are formed. Then dilute with another 1/2 cup of water and keep it aside.

2. Heat oil in a pan. 

3. Switch off the heat and add the garlic and the finely chopped dry chillies.

4. Mix well so that the garlic browns in the heat.

5. Place the pan back on medium flame and add onions.

6. When onions turn transparent add tomato ketchup, chilli sauce, soy sauce ,pepper and salt.

7. Mix and add the tomatoes and capsicum.

8.Add 1/4 cup water and let it cook in low flame till it boils ( approximately 1 minute)

9. Add the cornflour water and let the mixture cook over low flame for 5 to 7 minutes .

TIP: Make sure to keep stirring the sauce. Adjust the thickness of the sauce by adding less or more water. 

8. Now add the batter fried cottage cheese in the sauce and serve along with rice or noodles.

TIPS: 

a.Add the cottage cheese into the sauce just before serving.

b.Incase you are carrying this dish for your potluck party,  you can prepare the sauce ahead of time and carry the fried tofu/paneer separately. Just before serving, add the cottage cheese, give the sauce a boil and serve hot.

c. If you are calorie conscious, you can avoid frying the cottage cheese. You can simply toast them with few drops of oil and add it to the sauce.

Your yummilicious 'Cottage Cheese in Hot Garlic Sauce' is ready for your special lunch or dinner.

Happy Cooking!

With love,

Masterchefmom