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The fuss during most fasting days is often about cooking dishes sans onions and garlic. Many Hindus abstain from consuming these ingredients during vrat. Moreover, in traditional Jain households, none of the food is prepared using onions or garlic. The reason behind this practice is that these ingredients are considered tamasic in nature that produce heat in the body, and lend it a certain kind of energy that should be avoided during fasting.
Now, if you’re fasting, it is natural that you’d have to think of alternative ways of making things. For instance, the popular paneer butter masala is hard to imagine without onions and garlic. However, this easy recipe now makes it possible. Made with tomato puree, ginger and a host of other spices, the soft and mushy paneer cubes are dunked into the gravy and this gives a red tangy curry that can be paired with rice and roti.
Ingredients:
• 1-inch ginger
• 9 cubes paneer
• 1 bay leaf
• 3 pods cardamom
• 1 cup milk
• ½ Kashmiri red chilli powder
• ¼ cashew paste
• ½ tsp kasoori methi
• 2 tbsps butter
• ¼ tsp garam masala
Method:
• Begin by adding butter to a kadhai and let it melt.
• To this, add some spices like cardamom, cinnamon and bay leaf.
• Toss everything together and then add the thick tomato purée.
• Mix well and throw in sugar, salt and red chilli powder.
• While it simmers, add in the milk and cashew paste to thicken the curry.
• Finally, drop the paneer cubes and mix it.
• Cook it for a few minutes and sprinkle kasoori methi and garam masala on it.
• Mix it all together and serve hot with crunchy parathas or jeera rice.
