What would you like to eat on your free day? Probably not only sweets, but juicy meat or tender fish. True, not all delicacies can be freely purchased in the store. For example, polak fish is hardly familiar to you. After all, this is a real predator belonging to the Treskovy family.

It is an inhabitant of the seas and a close relative of cod, with the difference that the shape of the carcass is more elongated and more elegant. How to cook this fish? Are there any tricks?

Few facts

So what is a polak fish? It is a pearl gray specimen with a black front. The back is usually slightly darker and the underside is white. The fish has rather large jaws, which distinguishes it from the background of others and immediately identifies a predator in it.

Polaka fish live in large schools, especially low to moderate water temperatures. It is a predator that preys on herring and sprat. In pursuit of its prey, the individual travels great distances. Even its fry attack the eggs of other marine representatives.

The polaka fish is about 70 centimeters long, but there were exceptions when the carcasses reached 130 cm. This fish can live up to 25 years.

Benefit or harm?

To begin with, it is worth figuring out how high-calorie polaka is? The fish is nutritious enough. There are 344 kJ per 100 grams, which is approximately 82 calories per serving. But is it worth eating this product?

Denmark, Great Britain and Germany are considered its main suppliers. Sometimes the fish is called silver pollock or lure. Its fillet is rich in protein, but there are almost no fats and carbohydrates in it. Pollock is quite expensive - about 1,750 rubles per kilogram. Its taste is very unusual, but its main feature is the unique vitamin and mineral composition. Polaka fish, or rather its fillet, is rich in vitamins of groups A, B, D and E. In addition, it contains potassium, sodium, phosphorus, manganese and calcium. Fat obtained from fish liver is especially valuable.

You should not eat this fillet for people with individual intolerance to the product, food allergies.

In cooking

Polak fish is widely used in cooking. It is baked, fried, boiled and put on cutlets. It's easy to cook, and the taste is very rich. Only one thing is required from the cook - not to spoil the fillet and not to overdo it with spices.

Fillet fish polaka has a grayish, with a light aroma and piquant taste. This product is very harmoniously combined with potatoes, carrots, herbs. For the fish marinade, you should use lemon or tomato juice, as the fillet is quite tender and completely absorbs the flavors of other ingredients.

Hastily

If you are lucky enough to buy such a fish, then cook it with all your heart to fully enjoy the taste and retain maximum benefits.

So, before you is a polaka fish. How to prepare a delicious meal? Peel 6 potatoes and cut into slices. Leave the product to dry to allow excess starch to come out.

In the meantime, peel the onions and chop them. Place the onions in a skillet with heated oil. You can add a clove of garlic and some cilantro. Fry the ingredients lightly, add a glass of vegetable broth and the same amount of cream to the pan. Put the potatoes there. All ingredients should be stewed for at least half an hour.

For now, tackle the fish fillets. Rinse it, pat dry and marinate in a mixture of black pepper, salt and paprika. You can replace such a marinade with a slightly more complex one (made from mayonnaise and mustard). After a quarter of an hour, you can roll the carcass in flour and fry until golden brown. Or make a recipe truly French! To do this, the fish must be stewed in a mixture of dry red wine, onions, carrots and flour. Voila - the simplest recipe has been implemented!

When serving, add a slice of fish with a serving of stewed potatoes and a sprig of dill. If you have boiled fish in wine, then pour the resulting wine sauce over the fillet when serving. Enjoy your meal!

As the old joke said, if you drank the developer by mistake, drink the fixer, otherwise the matter will not be completed. I’ll say differently: if you have prepared (or found where to buy it, which is even more difficult in our conditions), go to the end and prepare a palak paneer, a vegetarian, in which the main roles are assigned to a duet of spinach and paneer. I must say that this couple copes with their task more than successfully: paneer is responsible for the "meat" component (despite the fact that there is not a single gram of meat in it), and spinach creates freshness and volume. After all, unless you're a die-hard meat eater, I see no reason not to cook the most popular vegetarian Indian dish.

Palak paneer

Ingredients

1 onion

2 cm ginger root

2 medium tomatoes

4 cloves of garlic

50 g butter or ghee

1 tsp chili powder

400g frozen or 600g fresh spinach

100-200 g of natural yoghurt

Melt about 1/2 butter or ghee in a skillet and sauté the diced paneers over medium heat. Transfer it to a separate bowl, return the pan to the heat, melt the rest and add finely chopped onions, garlic, tomatoes (it is better to peel them first), thinly chopped chili and grated on a fine grater. Saute the vegetables for a few minutes until they begin to emit an intense aroma, then add the spices and, stirring the contents of the pan, sauté for another two minutes.

Boil the spinach in salted boiling water until it shrinks (or thaws), then chill it in ice water to maintain its emerald color. Add spinach to the contents of the pan, season with salt, add yogurt to the desired consistency, beat the sauce with a blender until smooth and return to the pan. While stirring constantly, heat the sauce for 3-4 minutes, then add the fried paneer and let it simmer for a few more minutes to warm the cheese completely.

Serve palak paneer with boiled basmati rice. You can garnish the meal with cilantro herbs and add a few drops of yogurt to add some variety to the color scheme. Palak paneer can be stored in the refrigerator and reheated as needed - it will taste more balanced from this, but the color, alas, will change from emerald to darker.

Without it, it is impossible to imagine the amazing cuisine of India, which, as you know, smells of spices and burns the tongue.

Even if you ask for "know spicy" food there, it will be oh so spicy. Paneer, grilled cheese, the basis of many oriental dishes and, of course, the optimal choice of vegetarian lunch - these are the importance of balancing which we constantly talk about.

And palak, aka spinach, where you will find the lion's dose of vitamins and iron, not only useful, but also preventing the appearance of cellulite.

Yes, yes, I hasten to please those who like to set fire to taste recipes - spicy food helps to fight extra pounds and improves digestion.

Therefore, it's time to arrange an island of India in the kitchen and cook palak paneer, the recipe for which with step-by-step cooking photos can be found in this article.

Palak paneer is the best recipe

Step number 1. Preparing the ingredients

He's classic. And, as I said, the main thing in oriental cuisine is spices.

Therefore, before stocking up on spinach, I recommend raiding the spice department.

You will need:

1. Garam masala (translated from Hindi as "hot mixture", why hot, I will not explain;)) is a universal mix of spices. The classic composition looks like this: cloves, black and white pepper, cinnamon leaves, white and green cardamom, cumin seeds, nutmeg leaves, coriander and star anise seeds. In Ayurvedic medicine, by the way, it is believed that garam masala can cause a jump in temperature.
2. Ground chili - 1 tsp If your stomach is not friendly with spicy food, you can skip putting it at all or use a minimal amount.
3. Turmeric - 1 tsp
4. Fresh grated ginger - 1 tsp
5. Paprika - 0.5 tsp.
6. Cumin (cumin) - 0.5 tsp.
7. Ground coriander - 1 tsp

If you have at least half of the spices, it's already good for the first try - the dish will turn out to be not so authentic, but still tasty.

You can also replace them with a versatile curry, which is based on a dozen traditional oriental spices.

The rest of the ingredients:

1. Spinach - 200 g. I used fresh, but you can do with frozen, in this case we take 400 g.
2. Paneer cheese - 200-300 g. You can find it in health food stores, replace it with a similar Adyghe cheese, or cook it yourself (I will tell you how to do this below).
3. Chili pepper - 1 pc.
4. Cream - 100 ml.
5. Ghee or melted butter (I used the second one) - 1 tbsp. l.

Step # 2. Process spinach

So, let's take on the paneer palak. We start the cooking recipe by processing spinach.

Cook it until the leaves become soft and decrease in size several times. This will take a maximum of five minutes.

Separately, it should be said that Indian cuisine consists of half of everything that can be crumbled, whipped and chopped.

Previously, a sieve and mortar were used for this, but technical progress has made it the number one gadget in the land of spices.

Pour the resulting mass into another dish and set it aside for a while.

Step number 3. Grind and fry the spices

Now it is the turn of the spices.

In a blender, grind the grated ginger diluted with water to a paste state, send the rest of the spices to the same place to get a homogeneous mass.

Heat the oil in a frying pan or in a saucepan and fry the spices for a few minutes until they begin to stick violently.

Step number 4. Cooking the sauce

Now pour in the spinach and continue to simmer.

After five minutes, add cream in a thin stream, add salt to taste and cook over low heat for about five minutes.

In the meantime, our sauce is boiling, I'll tell you that there is a whole vegetarian city in India. In Palitana, not only is it forbidden to eat animal meat, but fish and eggs are also banned.

Moreover, many residents put on a bandage over their mouths so as not to accidentally swallow some midge and take its life.

The fact is that at least five million Indians profess Jainism - the religion of non-violence and harmlessness to anything living.

The Palitanian monks decided not to limit themselves to refusing meat - they went on a hunger strike and issued an ultimatum to the government to legally ban the killing of animals for food.

The city is considered a temple city and, despite the fact that today adherents of Hinduism live there, and there are fewer than a percent of Jains, it is full of Jain shrines.

Therefore, the authorities had to agree with the requirements - since 2014, meat, fish and eggs in Palitana can neither be caught, nor eaten, nor sold, nor raised.

Of course, there were protests from fishermen and farmers, but they also had to submit and rebuild their lives in a new way.

Step number 5. Combine cheese and spinach

So, remove the sauce from the stove. Now let's get down to the cheese - cut it into small cubes, fry in ghee, mix with the sauce and cook for a couple of minutes.

I added chili at the end of the boil so that the taste is not overly spicy.

Cheese in different variations can also be fried or added fresh.

Our classic homemade palak paneer is ready.

1. To get a 300-gram head at the exit, you need two liters of milk and the juice of one lemon. We buy homemade milk or with a minimum shelf life - too pasteurized and eternally fresh will not suit us, because manufacturers add a bunch of substances to it to prevent souring. We are trying to achieve just the opposite effect.
2. Bring the milk to almost a boil (no more than 90 degrees), pour in the lemon juice and stir with a spoon. After a couple of minutes, cottage cheese will float to the surface, and yellow whey will remain below. If souring does not happen, squeeze out another lemon.
   
3. When the mass has cooled down, drain it through several layers of gauze and leave for a quarter of an hour so that the serum is completely glass. Then we put the future paneer into a convenient shape and press down on top with a load so that it is formed and later easily cut. We leave it under pressure for 2-3 hours, after which we send it to the refrigerator.

Our paneer is ready. Besides the abovepaneer palaka recipe, it can be added to, fried with tomatoes or in batter, cooked with green peas in tomato sauce.

In Indian cuisine, this cheese is also used for cooking.

5+ Secrets of Loose Rice to Garnish

We just have to boil rice. Basmati is used in India. They grow it all year round and manage to harvest up to four harvests.

To keep your perfect side dish from turning into a gooey mess, just follow these simple guidelines:

1. Pre-soak rice in water for half an hour
2. Before cooking, we rinse several times - ideally, the water should already be clean, and not cloudy
3. We cook in a ratio of 2: 1 proportions, that is, for two parts of water we take one part of rice (according to the same recipe, super-buckwheat is obtained)
4. Put rice in hot or boiling water
5. Stir when it boils to large bubbles, reduce heat to a minimum and cover with a lid; cook for fifteen minutes, without interfering or removing the lid
   
6. Add salt during cooking, spices - at the end
7. When the cereal is cooked, leave it to brew for 5-10 minutes and be saturated with moisture

Your side dish for palak paneer is ready.

And to make cooking easier, here's a simple step-by-step video recipe from connoisseurs of Indian cuisine:

If you are using fresh spinach, rinse thoroughly, divide into leaves and chop.

Steam fresh or frozen spinach for 4-5 minutes, until the leaves are tender and shrink.

Grind the leaves in a blender or food processor until smooth. Set aside.

Peel and chop the chili.

Wash your food processor or blender. Grind the ginger and chili in it with the addition of cold water. Add coriander, paprika, cumin and turmeric and continue until a smooth paste forms.

Preheat ghee in a 2-liter saucepan over moderate heat. Place the spice paste in the hot oil and fry for 2-3 minutes, until it starts to stick to the bottom and a distinct aroma appears. Gently add the spinach puree, mix with the spices. Simmer over high heat for 3-4 minutes.

Cut the cheese into about 1 cm cubes.

Gently add cream, cheese cubes, garam masala and salt. Cook for another 5 minutes and serve hot with rice or hot bread.