Paneer cheese vegetable sandwich (Juice junction style)

I’ve taken it upon myself to teach Hasini one Tamil cinema song a week, every week until I find a music class for her. I want Hasini and Yuvi to appreciate good cinema and good music as much as I want them to appreciate good food.

Born into a nil-music background family, but a bonafide cinema-crazy family Hasini needs to keep up. Do you remember those days there would be little cinema song booklets sold on road platforms that had the lyrics for every song in the movie. I don’t know if these are around still. I’d love to get my hands on some. My dad would collect those booklets, memorize the lyrics and sing along to the songs on the gramophone. I sing along to the radio in my car. I don’t want Hasini to just sing along to her i-pod. Hasini is the family’s only hope.

Lately Hasini and Yuvi have been pouting “Let’s take a selfie pulla, give me a umma umma” which is kind of cute but I don’t know if her principal might approve of it. What if her principal is a “Thala” Ajith fan?

I have a hard time picking songs that are appropriate for her. Ever since Hasini won the fancy dress competition in her school singing M.S Subbulakshmi’s “Kaatrinile varum geetham”, she has been singing that for every teacher in her school, every athai, paati, onu-vitte-mama, next-door aunty and postman. I want her to sing a wider variety of songs. I am no purist but I don’t want to teach her “Daddy mummy veetil illai” or “Katti pudi Katti pudi da”. If you have suggestions for good songs that she can learn please do let me know in the comments box at the bottom of the post. I’d really truly appreciate it.

I’ve been mixing up her lunch too for a little variety. I sent her this paneer cheese vegetable sandwich yesterday hoping and praying that she’d eat it up and not bring back leftovers and embarrass me. Yeah, it is a very big deal.

I opened her lunch box with nervous anticipation and peered inside.

Just a few tomato slices.

I was ecstatic. She told me later that she didn’t like the tomatoes but the sandwiches were good. I’ve wanted to re-create these sandwiches ever since I ate them at Juice-junction in Bangalore, which is a very very long time ago. I loved their sandwiches. Hearty, delicious stuff.

The other reason I wanted to make this sandwich was Jagan is finally taking to his shiny American hob, skillets and pans after yet another stomach attack. He made his first omelette last week. He needs quick, easy and simple recipes that he can put together without too much prep work. This sandwich is ideal. Although I can vouch that slicing the onions and tomatoes is too much work for him and he is going to skip them. The green chutney spread needs a mixie. He’ll skip that too. He’ll substitute mayonnaise. He’ll probably switch chicken for paneer and if he does I hope he browns the chicken in a pan before putting it in his sandwich. There you have it – a simple chicken mayo sandwich. And this way, he’ll find my recipes extremely useful, he’ll strip it down to its bones and then add chicken to it. I am planning to post a recipe every week for Jagan’s inspiration and every other onsite IT guy (or girl) in the US or elsewhere. These are for you guys.

Prep time: 15 mins
Cooking time: 5 mins
Makes: 5 sandwiches

Ingredients

Bread slices – 10
Cheese slices - 5
Paneer – 100 gm sliced into 5 slices
Onion – 1 medium sliced thin
Tomato – 1 medium sized sliced thin
Iceberg Lettuce – ¾ cup chopped (optional)
Butter – ¼ cup
Salt to taste
Black pepper powder – ½ tsp
Green chutney spread – 4 tbsp (recipe below)

Ingredients – green chutney spread

Coriander leaves – a handful
Green chillies – 2
Salt to taste
Thick curd – 3 tbsp

Method

1. First make the green chutney spread. Grind together coriander leaves and green chillies to a paste. Add salt and curd and whisk well. Set aside. This can be made ahead of time and refrigerated.
2. Lay out the bread slices on a cutting board. Spread about a teaspoon or 2 of the green chutney spread on each of the 10 bread slices. Divide the sliced onions and tomatoes among 5 of the bread slices. Place a slice of paneer on each of the 5 slices. Pile some iceberg lettuce on top of the paneer slice. Top it with the cheese slice and close with a slice of bread, chutney side down. Dot the top of your finished sandwiches with butter.
3. Heat a tawa and reduce to low. Place the sandwiches butter side down on the tawa and cook for 1-2 minutes or till the underside is browned and crisp. Dot the top of the sandwiches with butter just like you did earlier. Flip each of the sandwiches gently over to cook the top side too to lovely golden brown crispness. Remove on to a plate and serve immediately.