The milk sits on the gas stove. Impatiently. I stir the pot occasionally. To pacify the rebellions foaming every now and then, ominously threatening to spill over.
Calm, peace, I exhort and turn off the heat.
The chana freshly made this morning hangs patiently on a hook. Cloaked in a white muslin. Drip. Drip. Drip. The water droplets from the chana collide with the steel draining board of the kitchen sink.
Almost therapeutic, my idle mind muses.
I pummel the fennel seeds in my stone mortar and pestle. The heady aroma of the trampled aniseed send my olfactory senses to a blissful high.
That’s intoxicating, the inebriated mind continues to ramble.
The ginger too succumbs to its fate at the hands of the lethal pestle.
Enough of destruction, the mind advises.
Enough, I agree.
A quick tick-off of the invisible checklist and I do know at once that it is all I need for the classic Mouri Chana this morning.
Mouri Chana- Chana cubes stewed languorously in milk scented with ginger and fennel.
Another Bengali classic, clean, confident flavors, minimalistic Zen, a must try the next time you are wondering what to do with the Chana.
Mouri Chana (Paneer cooked with fennel and milk)
Ingredients
- 200 g Paneer or cottage cheese cubed, home-made or bought from the market
- 1/4 cup peas
- 2 tsps fennel seeds
- 1 cup milk
- 1 tbsp fennel powder freshly ground
- 2 tsps ginger paste
- 1-2 bay leaves
- 3-4 green chillies slit
- 1 tbsps mustard oil
- 1/4 tsp sugar
- salt to taste
Instructions
- Smear the chana cubes with a pinch of salt.
- Dissolve the fennel seed powder in very little water to make a paste. Keep aside.
- Heat 1/2 tbsp oil in a frying pan and saute the paneer pieces till they take on just a tinge of golden brown. Remove from oil and keep aside.
- In the same oil, add the bay leaves and fennel seeds, allow them to splutter. Now add the ginger paste, the fennel seed paste and the green chillies.
- Sprinkle in a little salt and cook over a medium flame till oil starts to separate from the masala.
- Add the green peas and fried paneer, saute for a couple of minutes, lower the heat and gently pour in the warm milk. Bring to a simmer.
- Add the sugar and cook for a further 5-6 minutes.
- Adjust seasonings. Serve hot with luchi or rice.
I cooked this recipe twice and our family/friends love it.Thank you for sharing a traditional bengali recipe.
Hi Maumita,
Gone through the recipe and the post. Beautiful write up. Will definitely try this.
Thank you Chandana for stopping by ! A no-fuss recipe that would be ready in jiffy. Do let me know 🙂
Hello Maumita,
The paneer turned out really nice, though I didn’t have peas. Thanks.
Chandana, thanks for trying this recipe. Many more festive recipes are coming on the blog. 🙂 Stay tuned!
WANDERFUL Recpe
Dear Maumita,
I love your posts anyway because they are so full of nostalgia and such great reads. I also like it because very rarely have I found something which is the usual fare, it’s almost every time something beyond the popular known dishes that every other cook prepares. Maybe because you try to unearth the culinary gems which are hidden in the times gone by.
Anyway, I came across this recipe when it suddenly popped up in FB and decided immediately that instead of the hinger aludom planned for the dinner yesterday, I am going to prepare this, so what it requires the addition to the time back home to buy the paneer.
I didn’t have peas so substituted it with a bit of fried potato.
I must tell you that the dish turned out pretty well and quite tasty. And it was quite a simple dish to make, only difficult part being the grinding of the fennel seeds bit. Above everything, it was a completely different avatar of paneer that we were having for the first time.
I am definitely making this again.
I’m guessing we can extend the preparation to chicken also.
Thank you once again for this lovely preparation.
Apologies Anuradha for such a late response.
Thanks for stopping by my blog and very happy that you went ahead and tried the dish 🙂
I do a chicken preparation pretty much the same way using fennel and black cardamom as the primary spices.
Quite a delectable dish I should say 🙂
Beautiful read and a paneer dish in 15min? Loved it more!!!
Beautiful write up!! Will try this for sure
You amaze me always !! keep writing and sharing