Among all vegetarian dishes this is Nina's favorite one. He is one big cheese lover and specially if cheese is cooked in creamy tangy sauce. Every time it was on the dinning table , I could see a wide smile of satisfaction like..".oh the meal is awesome". On that note, I thought of including some fresh greens in the recipe so that the nutritional value is boosted up more. Use of dried fenugreek leaves in several Indian recipes is very common but this time I decided to add some(quite a lot) fresh leaves from my balcony garden as one of the main ingredient in my recipe. Most of the malai kofta recipe I saw/had, there was no use of fenugreek leaves in the koftas,rather very little amount of dried leaves was uesd in the sauce or gravy .
Benefits of fenugreek leaves: there are several benefits of fenugreek leaves. It acts as strong antioxidant, enhances bone health,good for digestive system , cures mouth ulcers, stimulates breast milk production, good for Heart, prevents anemia .For myself I got attracted most, owing to the very first benefit mentioned :) All these attributes of fenugreek is because it has Vitamin K, Vitamin C, Vitamin A, Calcium,B-Complex Vitamins and many powerful anti-oxidants.Thus, on the onset of spring my garden sees lots of fenugreek seedlings.
Lets get started with our nutrition packed fenugreek cheese combo.Here ,in this recipe, first I made fenugreek cheese balls then cooked/ added them in creamy tangy sauce made with tomatoes , cashewnuts and optional cream.
These are freshly made fenugreek cheese balls ready to go for frying.
These are the fenugreek cheese balls after frying.
Next comes the complete dish.
Fenugreek cheese balls can be also used as a starter.
Ingredients
- Fenugreek cheese balls/ Methi kofta: 1litre whole milk, 2teaspoons vineger, handful of fenugreek leaves ,1potato, halfteaspoon salt, 1 tablespoon oil.
- Creamy Sauce/Malai gravy: 1tomato , 8 to 10 cashewnuts, small piece of ginger, 4 tablespoons oil, 1 teaspoon coriander powder,1teasppon chilli powder, half teaspoon turmeric powder,1cup milk, 2tablespoon cream, half teaspoon salt, 1teaspoon sugar.
Directions
- 1Fenugreek Cheese balls/Methi Kofta :Boil 1litre milk and curdle it adding vinegar. Separate the cheese/paneer with strainer and wash under running cold water to remove the sourness of the vinegar. Take the cheese in a cotton cloth and squeeze out all the water. Boil potato and mix it with cheese. Add little salt and finely chopped fresh fenugreek leaves to the potato cheese mix. Now divide the mix into 7 to 8 portions and make flat/round circular balls. Next brush oil on the cheese balls and airfry until little brown on all sides. Cheese balls can also be shallow fried in a pan. In that case , some more oil will be required for frying and also smear the balls with little all purpose flour before frying.Fenugrrek Cheese balls are ready.
- 2Creamy sauce/Malai : Make a paste of tomato and ginger. Seperately make a paste of cashewnuts. Next heat oil in a pan and add tomato ginger paste. Cook it on medium to low flame until oil oozes out. Now add coriander powder ,chilli powder, turmeric powder (with little water ,so that the spice mix does not burn) and cook untill oil oozes out. Next add cashewnut paste and cook until oil oozes out. Now add 1cup milk , half cup water and bring to boil. Add fresh cream (optional)on top to garnish it.
