Schezwan Paneer

The Schezwan sauce is a versatile ingredient of the Indo- Chinese cuisine.  We have seen a number of dishes like the schezwan chicken, schezwan beef, schezwan fried rice and so on. It can also be added to some dips or used as such as a side if you prefer a spicy tangy element to every bite of what you are having. The schezwan sauce can be made easily at home as its recipe doesn't seem to be that difficult to whip up. But if you are someone like me who turns to be extremely lazy at times you can go for the store-bought ones too. Of the store-bought ones, one of my personal favorites is the Ching's Schezwan Chutney(this is not any sort of product promotion but just sharing my personal favorite).

This is a super easy recipe using the store-bought schezwan chutney. If you have just less than half an hour's time to cook a dish then this one is just for you. Grab a bottle of schezwan sauce or chutney the next time you go shopping and keep it handy, as this ingredient really helps you out in those stressful days of cooking. One successful dish of my kitchen experiments is this schezwan paneer recipe that I am sharing here.

Watch how to make it 

Ingredients

300 gm paneer(fresh or frozen, if you can get malai paneer then it tastes the best)

2 Tbsp oil

1 tsp sugar

2 green chilies, chopped

5-6 garlic cloves, chopped

1 onion chopped fine

1/2 capsicum chopped fine

1 Tbsp soy sauce

1Tbsp chili sauce(green or red)

1 Tbsp tomato ketchup

1 Tbsp schezwan chutney(I used Ching's brand)

salt to taste

1/2 tsp pepper 

Method

• Heat oil in a pan. Add the sugar and allow it to caramelize.
• Add the green chilies and garlic and fry for a few seconds
• Then add the onion and capsicum. Fry for a few seconds.
• In the meantime, in a bowl mix soy sauce, chili sauce and tomato ketchup. Pour this into the onion mix and fry for a few seconds.
• Now add the schezwan chutney and mix well.
• Add salt to taste(adjust salt as soy sauce already has salt in it).
• Mix everything well and then toss in the paneer. 
• Mix well so that the sauces coat the paneer pieces well.
• Cover and cook for just 1-2 minutes. (If you cook paneer for more time it tends to get hard unless you are using malai paneer)
• Finally, add the pepper powder, mix well and serve.
• Can be served with fried rice, pulao or can even be used as a filling for rolls or sandwiches.

• I have used frozen paneer here. Just soaked it in water for a few minutes, drained and added to the dish. The spice level of this dish is on a higher side. For those who would not prefer a spicy version can reduce the number of green chilies and pepper.
• You can also prepare this dish by omitting the onion and capsicum(I have tried it that way too), that gives a different taste but still it's not bad either. So in case, you don't have onion or capsicum you can try making this by skipping either one or both. It still tastes nice:)
• You can even add the onions and capsicum as big square cuts too if you like that crunch they impart.