Malai Kofta, which can be described as soft, melt-in-the mouth cheese ball in rich cream gravy, has ruled the Indian aristocratic taste senses right from the Moghul times, when it was invented. Best relished as a side course with Indian breads like Tandoori Roti or Naan, the Malai Kofta is basically a spicy dish with a hint of sweetness. Dig into the velvety soft kofta in one go, or slowly nibble into it, one small portion at a time, your utterly delicious journey through the kofta is going to end on a sweet note when your taste buds will discover the soft raisin in the center ! The classic Malai Kofta recipe calls for deep-frying the cheese balls in ghee( Indian clarified butter), or oil. However, being a health and weight-loss freak, I patronize making the dish with less or no fats. Therefore, I wanted to try out baking the Koftas rather than frying them.
Malai Kofta has a number of yummy variations,and here is the recipe for my dish.
Main Equipment
1. Oven
2. Measuring Cups and Spoons
3. A Container, for mixing the ingredients of the kofta
4. A Wok, for making the Kofta gravy
5. A Baking Tray for baking the Koftas
Ingredients
For the Malai Kofta:
1. 1/2 cup homemade cottage cheese(Chenna)/ Paneer( the commercially sold version of Chenna, which is sold in the block form). For making this, you will need 1/2 litre of milk.
2. 1 large-sized boiled and mashed Potato
3. 1 chopped white onion
4. 5 cloves of chopped garlic
5. Salt to taste
6. 1 tablespoon each of chopped Green chillies and chopped ginger
7. 3 tablespoonfuls of homemade cream( malai- this is the sheet of cream
that forms on top of boiled milk. To make it, you should allow the boiled milk to cool well and collect it from the surface).
8. 1 small-sized Lemon
9. 1/4 cup raisins
You can add more vegetables of choice, if you want. You can also omit potato, in which case you will need to use cornflour as a binding agent. You just need to use 2 tablespoonfuls of cornflour to bring the vegetables together to form Kofta balls.
For the Malai Kofta Gravy:
1. 1 cup of mixed nuts: cashew, almonds, walnuts etc.2. 2 tablespoonfuls of Garam Masala powder
3. 1 cup milk.
4.1 cup of homemade, low-fat, double-toned milk cream
5. 2 onions, 1 garlic clove, 3 green chillies - paste ( you can change the composition as per your personal taste).
6. 1 teaspoonful sugar
7. 3 tablespoonfuls of heart-healthy oil.
Preparation
Steps to Make Chenna
1. Boil the milk.
2. Cut the lemon horizontally and add the juice of both halves to the boiled milk in order to coagulate it, taking care to see to it that you are not dropping the seeds of the lemon into the milk. Commercial milk-coagulants are available to make Chenna, but as we do not want to use any artificial and chemicalized products in our preparation, we are not using it here. But, if you are particularly allergic to lemon, you can go for other alternatives. It is also important to note that milk that coagulates naturally, without the usage of any coagulating agent, is not very healthy to consume. You should not use milk that coagulates in this manner.
3. Remove the milk from the remaining liquid with the help of a strainer, and strain it further till a dry mass results. See the picture below:
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| Chenna |
BTW, Chenna is a very healthy ingredient ! I personally found this recommended for people ailing with jaundice, anemia, and a generally weak constitution. Chenna can also be eaten as it is with a
little sugar, salt or any other seasoning of choice. You could also
mimic scrambled egg curry with this, by adding spices, vegetables and
turmeric to it. A kid in my neighborhood, who topped in academics right from his childhood was religiously given Chenna mixed with almonds, by his mother, everyday, before he left for school !
If you do not want to make Chenna, you can buy blocks of Paneer and mash them.
Steps to Make the Kofta
1. Mix the chopped onions, mashed potato, cottage cheese, salt, chopped green chillies, chopped ginger and Malai. Your Malai Kofta paste should be of the consistency shown in the picture below:
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| Malai Kofta Paste |
2. Bring together a small part of the dough, shape it round and put a raisin in it, as shown in the picture below:
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| Malai Kofta Raisn Filling |
3. Cover the raisin from the top and make a round ball. This turns out to be a ball with a raisin stuffing
4. Arrange the balls neatly on the baking tray and bake them. The baked Koftas will look as below:
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| Kofta Ball |
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| Baked Malai Kofta |
Steps to Make the Malai Kofta Gravy
1. Make a paste with the nuts by crushing them in a mixer/blender with a small quantity of water2. Fry the nut paste in 3 tablespoonfuls of oil for about 10 mins
3. Make an onion, green chillies and garlic paste and fry it with the nut paste for 5 minutes
4. Add the salt and sugar
3. Stir in the homemade cream
4. Add the garam masala powder
5. Let the gravy cook for 10 minutes
6. You can dilute the gravy to desired consistency with milk, if you find it too thick.
Serving
You can choose to soak the koftas in the gravy for a while before serving, or pour the gravy on the Koftas just before eating them.
Malai Koftas can be served with Indian breads, such as Roti, naans etc. You can also try to be innovative by trying them with Western breads( by western, I mean American and European breads).
