A Mouth-Watering delight from Kashmir: Chaman Kaliya
History and origin:
Chaman Kaliya is a Kashmiri Wazwaan cuisine is primarily known for the nonvegetarian feast, but some of the vegetarian dishes from Kashmir are as amazing as Meat dishes.
One of the exotic vegetarian dishes famous among Kashmiri Pandits is CHAMAN KALIYA.
For Kashmiri Pandits Shivratri (called Herath in Kasmiri) is the main festival that marks the beginning of spring in the valley. For the feast of Shivratri, Chaman Kaliya is the most common dish as they devoid using onion and garlic for the feast and Chaman Kaliya tastes superb without onion and garlic also.
Chaman Kaliya derived from two words “CHAMAN ” means Paneer ( Cottage Cheese ) in Kashmir & “KALIYA” means Creamy Gravy/ sauce.
Basically, Chaman Kaliya is the Creamy Cottage cheese dish slightly yellow in color. The most fascinating part of this dish is the use of aromatic whole spices Fennel, Cardamom. It is very famous in Kashmir due to the use of fresh milk with saffron in making the dish.
Here presenting the recipe of this authentic dish so that dish can be made popular all over India as the dish has some very high nutritional value and helps to improve immunity and is very easy to make as it doesn’t require much of chopping and grinding, this is the only reason is very often made in Kashmir homes for vegetarian feasts.
INGREDIENTS: FOR 4 SERVING
| Time: 25 min | |
| 300 gm cottage cheese /Paneer | 2 green cardamom( lightly crushed) |
| 1/4 tsp asafoetida | 1 big black cardamom |
| 1 Bay leaf | 1/2 tsp shahi cumin seeds |
| 3 cloves | Salt as per taste |
| 3 tsp fennel powder | 1 small cup milk |
| 1/2 tsp turmeric powder | 2 tsp oil |
| 1 tsp dry ginger powder | 3 cups water |
| 1 pc cinnamon | Some strands of saffron |
PREPARATION:
- If you have homemade paneer cut into big cubes
- For store brought Paneer please soak it in the in Luke warm milk for few minutes. (this quantity of milk not included in the quantity mentioned above)
- If you want you can shallow fry paneer before making the dish otherwise you can totally avoid this step.
- In some water mix turmeric, dry ginger powder mix it well, and keep it aside.
- Heat oil in the pan add asafetida, cumin, cloves, cardamom, cinnamon, bay leaf.
- Add turmeric water to the pan bring it to a boil.
- Now add milk and boil it.
- Bring it to simmer and add paneer cubes, boil it again for few mins.
- Bring it to simmer again and let it cook with disturbing for 10-15 min until you can see paneer yellow, soft and creamy.
- Finish it off by putting Saffron strands. Let it stand for some time before serving.
Benefits
This recipe is very famous among Kashmiris due to its nutritional value and it is known to boost your immunity as it is loaded with whole spices which are majorly known for their health benefits.
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1 bay leaf