Malai Kofta recipe. These are delicious melt in your mouth paneer kofta in a creamy, rich, sweet and slightly sweet tomato onion sauce.
What is Malai Kofta
Malai kofta is a popular vegetarian Indian dish and the most sought after in restaurants. Malai means cream and Kofta are fried dumplings. They are usually made with mashed potatoes, mixed vegetables or paneer.
In this delicious restaurant-style malai kofta recipe, the kofta are made up from paneer and potatoes. They are crisp and melt in the mouth. These tasty paneer kofta are dipped in a mild, slightly sweet and light spicy curry. The combination of kofta with the curry taste is awesome. This is one of the best malai paneer kofta you can try making at home. The recipe is for good.
There are different variations of the Malai kofta recipe. In this recipe, the curry or sauce is made from ground cashew paste, onion paste, and tomato puree. I did not use cream in this recipe. For the filling, you can use cream if you prefer.
The cashew paste makes the curry creamy, so you need to add cream. Instead of cashews you can also use soaked almonds or both soaked almonds and cashews.
Malai kofta is best served with naan or paratha or roomali roti or roti. Even jeera rice or steamed basmati rice can be served with it. I served with phulkas.
The sauce or curry can be kept white or colored red or brown using spice powders and tomato puree. Either way, malai kofta tastes good. To make any paneer dish, it’s always best to paneer at home.
The recipe below will make 6-7 paneer kofta with a curry for 3-4 people. Let me tell you, Malai kofta is a hearty meal. So even 1 to 2 paneer kofta would satisfy per serving.
How to make malai kofta
Preparation
1: Take all the ingredients mentioned under “To make paneer kofta” except the oil in a bowl.
The necessary ingredients are 100 grams of grated paneer, 2 medium-sized potatoes (boiled and grated), ¼ teaspoon of red pepper powder, 1 to 2 tablespoons of cornstarch (corn starch), ? teaspoon coffee of garam masala powder, salt as needed and 1 tablespoon of almond flour. Instead of almond flour, you can also use 1 tablespoon of powdered milk OR 1 tablespoon of khoya (mawa or dry extract of evaporated milk).
2: Mix really well. Both the paneer and the potatoes would be mashed during the mixing process. Shape them into medium sized balls. You can stuff them with dried fruit. Note that before shaping and frying the whole batch, check a small piece of paneer kofta in hot oil (step 4 below). If it doesn’t break, you can easily fry the remaining koftas. If it breaks, add a little more binding agent like corn flour (corn starch). You can add 1 to 2 tbsp of corn flour. Mix and shape into koftas.
3: Also prepare the cashew, onion paste and tomato puree. To prepare so much pasta and puree, I always use the magic bullet. It is fast unlike a chutney mill and very easy to clean.
Also Read: Kadai Paneer Recipe – Semi-Dry And Gravy | 2 Ways
Frying Paneer Kofta
4: Heat oil for shallow or deep frying. I always fry shallow. Add the kofta paneer to medium hot oil. Fry them until golden brown on both sides.
5: Fry all the kofta paneer in this way and drain them on a paper towel so that the extra oil is absorbed.
Making malai kofta
6: Remove the excess oil from the same pan and keep about 1 or 1.5 tablespoons of oil. Add the whole spices and fry them until they release their aroma into the oil.
7: Add the onion paste.
8. Fry the onion paste until golden brown. then add the ginger-garlic paste or the crushed ginger-garlic.
9. Add the tomato puree and for 2-3 minutes, sauté it
10. Now add the cashew nut paste. Also add the red chilli powder and ¼ teaspoon of garam masala powder.
11. Stir and sauté until the oil begins to leave the side of the masala dough. It will take about 9-10 minutes on a low flame.
12. Add water and stir. Simmer until the sauce becomes thick and creamy. Malai kofta sauce is generally smooth, creamy, and slightly thick. You can also keep the consistency medium, like I did.
13. Add the crushed kasuri methi (dried fenugreek leaves) and salt as needed. Simmer 1 to 2 minutes more.
Serving Malai Kofta
14. Finally add the fried kofta. If you are serving malai kofta later, you can just make the sauce and add kofta while serving. These kofta paneer are really sweet. So they will break if you add them before and serve them later. Since I was serving immediately, I added them to the sauce.
15: garnish the malai kofta with coriander leaves and serve the malai kofta with rotis, naan or jeera rice or saffron rice or chapatis.
