Easy way of styling a dish – Ricotta spinach tortellini with Makhani sauce.

If you go to a good restaurant you could see they have used many techniques to embellish the dish to stimulate your appetite. One of the main components of this food styling is the focal point of your plating. That is where mainly our eyes get attracted. It can be either in the centre, or on the sides of the plate. Here in this simple recipe I am showing these with few tortellini pastas and basil leaves.

Shapes of some food items are great, especially pastas. Pastas like tortellini, ravioli, fusilli, farfalle are great in plate presentations. Here I have used ricotta spinach tortellini with makhani sauce.

Pastas used – Ricotta spinach tortellini and spaghetti

Sauce – Makhani sauce

Recipe for Makhani sauce

Makhani sauce is one of the favourites’ among Indian sauces. It is a delicately flavoured sauce which has a taste of tomatoes, aromatic spices, butter and cream.

Serves 3- 4

Preparation time – 15 minutes

Cooking time – 25 minutes

Ingredients

Tomatoes – 2 nos (chopped)
Onion –2 nos  (chopped)
Green chilli – 1
Cashew nuts – 8 to 10
A small piece stone flower – small piece
Bay leaves – 2 nos
Cloves – 2 nos
Green cardamom – 2 nos
Black cardamom – 1 nos
A small piece of mace
Butter – 3 tsp
Oil – 2 tsp
A pinch of sugar
Fresh cream- ¼ cup
Roasted kasoori methi (powdered) ¼ tsp
Method
1) Soak the cashew nuts in warm water for half an hour and grind to make a smooth paste.

2) Boil onion, tomatoes and green chilli together. Cool and grind to a smooth paste.

3) Mix butter and oil together in a pan and heat them.

4) Add all the whole spices and sauté on low flame.

5) Add the coriander, red chilli, turmeric powders and mix.

6) Add the cooked onion-tomato-chilli paste and cook.

7) Add the cashew nut paste, mix and cook bit more.

8) Add water to the gravy to bring it to your right consistency.

9) Switch off the flame and mix the cream and garnish with kasthoori methi.

10) Makhani gravy is ready