Take greek yogurt, mustard oil, besan, ginger and garlic in a large bowl. Whisk really well and make sure that there are no lumps of besan.
Now add all the spice powders and salt. Mix everything well.
Add paneer, onion and pepper cubes. Mix well so the marinade is coated to every piece.
Cover it with plastic wrap and let it rest for 1 hour to 4 hours or even overnight (if prepping ahead of time).
Grilling In The Oven:
Preheat the oven to 450°F (or 230°C) for at least 10 minutes.
Prepare the baking tray with a rack on top. You can line the bottom tray with parchment paper or aluminum foil.
If using wooden skewers then make sure to soak ahead of time for at least 30 minutes.
Arrange the paneer and veggies on the skewer.
Spray generously with the cooking oil spray. Turn the skewers and spray again, so all the sides are coated with the oil.
Roast in the oven (in the middle rack) for 10 minutes.
Then turn the broiler on, transfer the tray on top rack and grill for 3-4 minutes or until it gets charred flavor. During the broiling process, halfway through remove the tray, flip the skewers and broil. So it gets charred from all sides.
Cooking On Tawa (Stovetop):
Use the nonstick pan or grill pan.
Heat the pan on medium heat, season the pan with oil. Place the skewers.
Once the bottom side is golden brown then flip and cook another side. Similarly, cook all four sides.
To get the smokey, charred flavor, slightly roast directly on the flame (like we roast the urad papad or make roti). For this step, be sure to open the windows and door, you’ll get some real smoke. It is good idea to turn off the fire alarm for sometime.
Notes
Use greek yogurt or hung curd. Do not use regular yogurt. Otherwise, the whey makes the marinade runny and instead of sticking to the paneer cubes, they sit at the bottom of the bowl.
Marination time: At least 1 hour is recommended. Above that, you can go up to overnight. More the marination time, flavors get infused more and more.
The color of the marinade: In the restaurant, they add a few drops of food color to get the bright red color. Even if you add Kashmiri red chili powder at home, you won’t get that bright red color because we are adding all other spices as well. So at first as you mix, you don’t see a nice color. But as it is rested for marination, it picks up its color. But still not bright red like restaurants have.
Avoid overcooking: Please roast them in the oven for only 10 mins and then broil for 3-4 mins only. Please do not cook for more than the mentioned time otherwise it gets chewy and dry.
Veggies: Just like the restaurants, I have used onions and peppers. You can skip if you don’t like it. You can add other vegetables like broccoli, mushroom, baby corn, tomato, etc.
Extra marinade: If you have any leftover marinade mixture, you can apply over tikka skewers before cooking. Or if you are going to make paneer tikka masala then add into the gravy.