Fasting can be made fun by spicing up your vrat-food in the right way! Bored with having farali and sabudana through the days of Navratri? Here is a recipe with water chestnuts and cottage cheese by Chef Tushar Chahera, Academy of Pastry and Culinary Arts, Bangalore.
Water chestnuts are not nuts but aquatic tuber vegetables with low calories and about 74% water. Adding them to one's breakfast, can do wonders to one's wellness. Also, water chestnut contains a high concentration of antioxidants, making it potential to reduce the risk of heart disease.
Water Chestnut and Cottage Cheese
Ingredients
Water chestnut halves (peeled) - 200 grams
Cottage cheese cubes (Paneer) - 200 grams
Ghee - 2 tbsp.
Cumin seeds - 2 tsp.
Whole red dried chillies - 2 nos.
Tamarind paste - 4 tbsp
Jaggery water - 0.5 cups
Rock salt (senda namak)
Red chili powder - 1 tbsp.
Sesame seed - 2 tsp.
For batter
Buckwheat flour (kuttu ka aata) 100 gms
Rock salt (senda namak)
Steps to prepare the delicious meal
⦁ Take buckwheat flour in a bowl, add salt and keep adding water while mixing till there's consistency in covering
⦁ Heat oil in a pan for deep frying.
⦁ Dip and cover water chestnut halves and Paneer cubes into the batter and crisp fry them and reserve.
⦁ In a wok heat ghee and temper it with cumin seeds and whole red chili.
⦁ Now add tamarind pulp paste and red chili powder.
⦁ Then add jaggery water to form a sauce.
⦁ Season with rock salt.
⦁ Toss batter fried water chestnut and paneer in the sauce at high temperature.
⦁ Finish with sesame seeds or chopped coriander and serve hot.
