6 colourful Indian dishes to make at home this Diwali in UAE

Serves: 4 | Prep time: 5 mins
Cooking time: 25 mins | Difficulty: Medium

For dahi kebab

For pear and walnut salad

1. Add the yoghurt and all other ingredients for the kebab, except bread, in a bowl, mixing until smooth. Season.

2. Roll the slices of the bread with a rolling pin. Stuff the empanadas with yoghurt mixture using an empanada press or gujia mould. Keep the empanadas in a refrigerator for some time.

3. For the pear, pour water in a pan along with salt, sugar, fennel and onion seeds. Bring to the boil and then drop the pear in it. Take the pan off the stove, allowing the pear to cool in the syrup for 10 minutes. Remove the pear from the syrup and cut into thin slices. Gently toss the sliced pears with arugula leaves and walnut.

4. Meanwhile, heat oil in a pan and fry the empanadas until golden brown.

5. Grate parmesan on top of the kebabs and serve with pear and walnut salad and tamarind chutney.

— Recipe courtesy of Trèsind

Serves: 4 | Prep time: 10mins
Cooking time: 25mins | Difficulty: Medium

For avocado galouti

For tomato salsa

For sour cream

1. To make the galouti kebab, first cut the avocados lengthwise and mash with a fork. Now add all the ingredients in a bowl. Mix well and season with salt.

2. Make small patties of the mixture and refrigerate for 15 minutes.

3. To make the tomato salsa, add all the ingredients in a bowl. Mix well, seasoning with salt.

4. To make the sour cream, mix the fresh cream and lime juice. Add salt to taste and whisk them together.

5. Cut the tortilla sheet in small bite-sized circles.

6. Sear the avocado patties and tortilla pieces on a hot pan for a few seconds.

7. Place the patties on tortilla, top off with sour cream and tomato salsa.

— Recipe courtesy of Trèsind

Serves: 2 | Prep time: 5mins
Cooking time: 25mins | Difficulty: Easy

1. Peel asparagus and keep aside.

2. Boil half the nuts and onion with ginger, garlic and chillies. Cool and grind to a fine paste in a food processor. Add the ground spices and mix.

3. Fry the remaining nuts in ghee to a golden brown colour and set aside for garnish.

4. For the korma gravy, heat the oil and fry the remaining onion over medium heat until browned, stirring frequently. Add the puréed nut paste with onion to it and cook for a couple of minutes.

5. Blanch asparagus in boiling water with salt for 10 seconds, take them out from the water. Add blanched asparagus to the korma gravy.

6. Reduce heat to low, add water to the gravy. You can add milk to make it richer. Add yoghurt while taking care not to overcook it, as it will separate.

7. Garnish with cilantro and fried cashew nuts and serve over rice.

— Recipe courtesy of Bombay Brasserie, Taj Dubai

Serves: 3 | Prep time: 5 mins
Cooking time: 15 mins | Difficulty: Easy

For the mint sauce

1. For the mint sauce, blend all the ingredients together except yoghurt and chaat masala. Transfer it to a mixing bowl, then add the yoghurt and chaat masala and stir it well.

2. Heat one tbsp of oil in a pan. Cut the paneer block in julienne strips. Fry these for a couple of minutes and set these aside.

3. Heat the pan, add rest of the corn oil. Add cumin and chopped garlic and sauté these well. Add onion and bell pepper and sauté these for about two minutes. Add tomatoes, green chillies, kasuri methi and other powdered spices and cook these well.

4. Warm up the tortilla bread slightly. Spread two spoons of the paneer mixture on the tortilla bread and roll it. Keep it on the griller for about five minutes until grill marks appear.

5. Serve with mint sauce.

— Recipe courtesy of Dubai International Hotel

Serves: 2 | Prep time: 10 mins

Cooking time: 20 mins | Difficulty: Easy

Ingredients

Method

1. Wash the rice at least three times in cold water and strain. In a pot, add water 3-4 times the quantity of rice along with a little salt and oil.

2. Add rice to the boiling water and cook on a medium flame until it is tender and fluffy. Keep it aside.

3. Heat a little oil and ghee in a pan and sauté the onions and sugar until they are caramelised. Remove the onions and set aside.

4. Add the bay leaf, cardamom, cumin seeds, cloves, cinnamon stick and peppercorns — and sauté on a very low flame for a few seconds.

5. Add the nuts, raisins, ginger and green chilli and sauté on a low flame until the nuts are crisp and slightly browned.

6. Add mint leaves and give the mixture a stir.

7. Add cumin powder and salt and sauté until the raw smell goes away.

8. Then crush the saffron strands and add to the mixture and sauté for a few more seconds.

9. Add the cooked rice and stir gently so that you don’t break the grains and everything blends well.

10. Finally, add the caramelised onions and stir well. Reserve some caramelised onions for garnishing.

11. Remove and garnish with chopped mint leaves and caramelised onions and serve hot with a curry.

— Recipe courtesy of Bombay Brasserie, Taj Dubai

Serves: 4 | Prep time: 5mins

Cooking time: 20mins | Difficulty: Medium

Ingredients

For kadai masala

For the kadai paneer

Method

1. Roast coriander seeds, cumin, black pepper and red chillies in a hot pan. Let it cool before grinding coarsely to make the kadai spice mix.

2. Heat the oil in a pan and sauté onion, tomatoes, ginger-garlic paste and the spices. Cook for 5-7 minutes or until the oil separates.

3. Add paneer, green chillies and coriander leaves and cook over high heat until the paneer pieces are well coated with the spice mix. Season.

4. Preheat the oven to 140 degrees celsius. Transfer the kadai paneer to a deep dish (pizza pan) and add the mozzarella. Bake for 5-7 minutes.

5. Cut all the peppers into finger-sized batons and thinly slice the jalapeños. Sauté for a few minutes.

6. Cut snow peas and asparagus into equal lengths and blanch them in boiling water. Cool.

7. Garnish the dish with peppers, jalapeños, snow peas and asparagus. Serve.

— Recipe courtesy of Trèsind