I always shy away from this dish because of deep frying. But, lately I have been seeing a lot of people baking the pieces instead of deep frying. Although that suits me well, I went with deep frying the first time around since I wanted to get the actual feel of this dish before I play around with baking. I have to say that it brought back nostalgic memories of college days where we used to go out for lunch once in a while and ‘Gobi Machurian’ was always on the list. It was everybody’s favorite. Those were the carefree days where the only thing we were expected to do was study

Ingredients – For batter
12-15 paneer pieces
1/4 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup corn starch
2 tbsp bengal gram flour
1/2 tsp chilly powder
Turmeric
Salt
1 tsp ginger paste
1 tsp garlic paste
1/4 cup water approximately

Ingredients – For gravy
1 tbsp oil
1 medium onion (1 cup sliced)
Small piece of ginger chopped
2 cloves garlic chopped
1 green chilly sliced thinly
1/2 green bell pepper (1 cup sliced)
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp tomato sauce or paste
1/2 tbsp chilli sauce (Adjust to taste)
Salt
1/4 cup water
Spring onions for garnish

Notes
You can substitute cauliflower instead of paneer.

Method

Take all the ingredients for batter except paneer and water.

Mix with water to form a batter. I went with a slightly thick batter like that of bajji batter.

Add the paneer pieces to the batter.

Coat each piece. I used a spatula to avoid messing my hands.

Heat oil and deep fry the pieces.

Look at those fried pieces .. they look like mini bajjis.

Now on to the gravy. Heat oil and add onion, ginger, garlic and chilly. Saute for a minute.

Add the bell peppers.

When the bell peppers are cooked add the sauces and salt. Taste after adding the sauces and add salt accordingly. Don’t overcook the bell peppers. We want them to have a crunch.

Add the fried paneer pieces and toss gently until combined.

No it is not chicken .. it is paneer . We had it with peas pulao and it tasted excellent.

Enjoy!

Sending this to Radhika’s Lets cook series – subzis for rotis.