Saag paneer

A few weeks ago, I had a craving for some saag paneer. The grocery store I was in at the time didn't have any paneer. What is paneer anyway, I asked myself, isn't it some sort of cheese curd? And when you buy poutine, don't they sometimes use mozzerella instead of proper cheese curds? Maybe I could just use mozzerella instead.

I came home and consulted the Internet for a saag paneer recipe. Cut the paneer in to cubes and pan fry in a shallow layer of oil. No problem. Predictably, when I dropped cubes of mozerella into smoking hot oil, it instantly melted into a gooey oily mess. Yuck. Quel desastre.

Looking up the definition of paneer in wikipedia, it is described as "an unaged, acid-set, non-melting farmer cheese made by curdling heated milk with lemon juice." I think that non-melting clause may just be important. Sarah, the victim of the oiled mozzerella disaster, gave me some proper paneer from the East West Market. And this time, it turned out grand.

Dusk patrol

It may not be the end of fresh snow for the Coast mountains, but it's certainly the end of fresh snow for the North Shore. This is outstanding news from a lazy sleeping-in perspective. Now I can target sun-softened afternoon snow, instead of 5am fresh powder. Sunset over the mountains is just as beautiful as sunrise. Anyone interested in an after work ski next week?

Dry hopping

James arrived on the Coast to help me celebrate my 5 day long weekend. We played plentiful music, and were duly humbled by North Shore mountain biking. It seems though that the camera only came out for a beer bottling session, and as such, that will be the topic of this post.

As it was Passover, we cracked open some He'brews to start the bottling session.


Though I had left the beer an unfortunate 13 days in the bucket, the seal was apparently still quite strong.


This was my first attempt at dry hopping. The goal is to add additional flavour and aroma to the India Pale Ale without adding bitterness. So, instead of boiling the hops during the brew process, they were simply added cold after 3 days to the primary fermenter. I was a little confused about the term "dry hopping", as the hops are clearly wet, so I looked it up in Wikipedia. Wikipedia didn't know anything about dry hopping, but offered this useful suggestion.


I presume "dry" in the confusing terminology of brewing means "not cooked", and not, "not wet" as is commonly understood.
Frustratingly, the hops got sucked in to the siphoning tube, severely throttling the filling rate, but with the help of the He'brews, I relaxed for a zen bottling experience.



And, just before leaving, I'll include one more James in the kitchen photo from his last visit.


We pan-fried the poppadoms in 2 inches of oil. They were exceptionally delicious. If James looks a little cautious with the hot oil here, it's because moments earlier I was reminded of that old saying about oil and water. The pan had just been washed, and there was still a little water left in the bottom, which was then coated in 2 inches of oil. We heated the pan, the water completely vaporized, and then pushed its way up to the surface creating a gushing geyser of maiming hot oil with a loud explosive pop. Lesson learned kids. Be careful.