Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
ALLEN DIWAN: Hi. My name is Allen Diwan. I'm the owner and head chef of Kashmir Indian
restaurant in Budapest. We are here on behalf of Expert Village. The dish now we're going
to be preparing is called paneer masala. Okay, so let's add in our oil. We're using vegetable
oil about 5 to 6 tablespoons of oil. We need to use quite a lot of oil, the reason simply
being that oil is a carrier of flavors and the oil is--that's why we're using vegetable
oil because we do not want a very strong flavored oil that has a lot of character because that
will not absorb the character of the spices. So, let's add our spices. We'll add the cinnamon
stick slowly. We'll add the cumin seeds. We'll add the coriander seeds. I'll just take the
coriander seeds, put it in my palm and break them slightly. This will give it an additional
flavor. We'll break it up slightly and bring out the aromas even better. Add the cloves,
the black peppercorn. We'll use two black cardamoms. And for the green cardamom, we'll
take some green cardamom and I'll put it on my chopping board here. Take my knife, put
it on top of it, and give it a nice bash. This will sort of open the cardamoms and let
their--the black seeds that are inside the green cardamom will release their aromas better.
So, the whole point of cooking this dish is to make sure that you release all the flavors
from the spices and get it into your masala. If you don't do that, then it's just going
to be adding a lot of spices and it will be pointless. Now, as you can see, the spices
have started to crackle up slightly and this is a good sign and they're changing color.
The spices are now changing their color and they're sprinkling a little bit. And this
is what we want exactly, the spices to change their color slightly and to crackle a little
bit. This will show that the spices have released their essential oils and by the time we're
adding the rest of the ingredients, they will absorb the flavors from the spices. So now
what we're going to do is simply let our onions cook. They'll go slightly brownish.