Monday, February 1, 2016

It's OPOS all the way

OPOS.. This is the new word and technique I have learnt the last month. OPOS - read as One Pot One Shot, is a new cooking methodology that I learnt in the last 10 days. It might not be a totally new concept, but the idea of one pot cooking has been extended to almost all recipes

I was introduced to this facebook group called Unified by Food, where the basic idea is OPOS cooking, flash cooking etc. Though they do have other regular recipes, the main theme is one shot cooking. As it is evident from the name, we layer all the ingredients in the pressure cooker and cook for the recommended time. The time depends on the type of ingredients we use. Lentils and legumes for example need longer to cook, whereas spinach and other greens take hardly 5 minutes. 

The only thing that is time consuming in this method is chopping the vegetables. After that it's only minutes before the meal is ready. The main problem with this is, it's extremely addictive. Once we have OPOS'd a dish, we think of OPOS'ng all!! 

What we need for OPOS is pressure cooker, that's it!! Of course other than our ingredients. In the last 10 days I tried 4 dishes using this method - Ram Khichdi, Sambhar, Palak paneer and beetroot Halwa. Yesterday being sunday, we had palak paneer with Phulkas and beetroot halwa for dessert.
Here's the method to make palak paneer
In a pressure cooker (PC), layer 3tsp (butter, water) 1tsp GG (Ginger garlic) paste, 1/2C Ch onions, 1Ch tomato, 1/2tsp (salt, chili pwdr, GM, cumin pwdr), 2tsp dry kasuri methi, 1Ch chili, 250g Ch spinach (4C) & 1C paneer cubes. Cook on high for 2Wh (6min). Release pressure. Mash all except paneer.

And for Beetroot halwa:
Peel & grate 500g beetroots. Squeeze out moisture. Mix In 1C sugar, 1/4C crumbled paneer, 1/2tsp cardamom pwdr. In a PC, layer 1/4C ghee, carrots. Cook on high for 10Wh (8 min). Release pressure. Mix in 1/2C (nuts, dry fruits)

I made a mistake by not squeezing out the water from beetroot and it let out a lot of water. I had to drain out the excess
Another advantage in this method is, the vegetables retain their original color unlike other methods of cooking

Well, I have OPOS'd all through this post!! Hope you catch the OPOS fever too

Till next time.. Take care.. Be happy.. Keep stitching.. Au Revoir