Malai kofta is a classic North indian dish. It is very rich , creamy and delicious dish because koftas stuffed with dryfruits and gravy is made from cashews. It goes well with chapati, naan , poori and parantha . No onion no garlic recipe of Malai Kofta.
Ingredients:
For koftas
7 oz paneer or 200 gm paneer
11/2 tbsp Maida (All purpose flour)
1 boiled potato
1/4 tsp salt
Stuffing
5-6 cashews finely chopped
5-6 raisins finely chopped
1 tbsp coconut (optional)
1 tsp cardamom powder
For curry
3/4 cup Kaju (cashew) (Soak for an hour)
2 tbsp Poppy seeds (khas-khas)
2 tbsp melon seeds
2 cup milk
1 cup water
11/4 tbsp salt (or as per taste)
1 1/2 tbsp sugar
11/2 tsp garam masala powder
2 tbsp oil
1/4 tsp Cardamom powder
Oil to fry koftas
Garnishing
Some grated paneer
Method:
Koftas
Take a bowl . Grate the paneer. Add boiled and mashed potato. Mix Maida and salt . Mix well. Knead the mixture for 3-4 minutes and make the soft dough. (Grease your Palm and knead the dough). For koftas dough is ready.
For stuffing , mix all stuffing ingredients in a bowl .
Divide the dough into equal parts and give each part a round shape of ball.
Take one ball and flatten it in the center and put 1/2 tsp stuffing (stuffing should be like 2-3 pieces of cashew, rasins and little coconut and cardamom powder should be in each and every koftas) and carefully wrap from all the side and make round ball.( Wrap properly otherwise stuffing can come out while frying).
Repeat the process with other balls and make koftas.
Heat the oil in a pan for frying the koftas. Make sure oil neither should be hot nor cold.
Put the koftas in the oil , cook the koftas until they become light brown in color. (I don’t want dark brown color, if you like then fry for more seconds.)
Koftas are ready ; keep aside them.
Gravy
We can use the poppy seeds and melon seeds (your choice) in two ways.
1) Soak poppy seeds and melon seeds in water for two hours .
then blend in a blender with little water then add in the cashew paste.
2) Grind the poppy seed and melon seeds in a grinder then add in the cashew paste (No need to soak in the water)
In this recipe
I am using grinding process , grind poppy seed and melon seed together in a grinder and make fine powder.
Blend the cashew with 1/2 cup milk in a blender.
Add poppy and melon seed powder in cahew paste and again blend for few seconds.
Cashew paste is ready.
Heat oil in a pan.
Add cashew paste and stir for 7-8 minutes on medium gas continuously.
Add milk and water. Mix well. Stir for 5-6 minutes on medium gas.
Add salt and sugar. Stir for more 1-2 minutes. Add Garam Masala powder and cardamom powder. Stir for few seconds. Turn off the gas.
Cashew Curry is ready.
Serve Kofta with curry. (When you are going to serve only then add koftas in gravy, otherwise koftas will break because koftas are very soft)
Garnish with some grated paneer ….Malai Kofta with cashew gravy is ready to serve.
Tips :-
1) Koftas should be cook on medium gas otherwise it will burn from outside and uncook from inside.
2) While frying koftas , first thing when your oil is hot then drop little ball of paneer dough and see that it is frying well or not . if it is spreading that means dough is not ready to fry. Then you can add little more Maida and check it again. But dont add more maida other wise it will become hard.
3) In gravy , you can add onion also. Make the onion , green chili and ginger paste.
heat oil in a pan . Add onion paste and stir for 3-4 minutes then add cashew paste and then do it as above manner.
4) We can make any gravy with onion or without onion. But if we are using onion then we have to stir onion firstly, then we will add other things.
5) Quantity of water and milk can adjust as per thickness of gravy.
Read full post: Malai Kofta in white gravy