Flashback Wednesday: "Super Easy Homemade Paneer"

[This entry about making Indian cheese from scratch is from my LiveJournal weblog, dated June 24, 2009. I am including it here because next week, I will be writing about some of my favorite Indian vegetarian dishes, including Palak Paneer.]

A hands-down favorite dish from my childhood is Palak Paneer, a slow-cooked spinach (palak) curry with chunks of fresh homemade cheese (paneer). Back in the mid-1970s, when I was still in high school and my family and I were living on the edge of an Illinois cornfield, far from any Asian groceries or restaurants, I found a recipe for Palak Paneer in an Asian cookbook from the public library.

As with every other recipe I've tried since then, the curried spinach part of the dish turned out great, but the homemade cheese part was just too much trouble for too little result. For every half gallon of milk, I would get barely a cup of cheese (usually less), not enough, really, for a single batch of the curry for four to six people. Often, I would omit the cheese completely. Other times, I'd substitute small chunks of mozzarella cheese, which is a tasty India-meets-Italy fusion, but not authentic.

However, I recently stumbled upon a recipe for paneer that is much more satisfying in the effort-versus-results department. Oddly enough, although there is a bit more lemon juice in this recipe compared to the other recipes, the main difference is not the ingredients but the method. Rather than turning off the heat as soon as you've added the lemon juice, this method has you bring the mixture to a boil again after adding the lemon, then boiling it another few minutes before turning the heat off. The resulting curds are chunky and plentiful.

[This babble continues...]


From a gallon of milk, I will usually get nearly two pounds of paneer with this method...which is awesome!...

Here's how I now make paneer:

Bring 1 gallon of fresh milk (this happens to be raw milk from Pasture Maid Creamery in PA) to a boil slowly, stirring from time to time. Don't let it over-boil or burn.

You'll know it's time to add the juice of 5 lemons when the milk begins to froth around the edges of the pan and the whole pot threatens to boil. Keep stirring as you add the lemon juice.

Almost immediately, the milk will begin to clump and curdle. This is good!! Keep stirring and keep the heat going for a few more minutes as the temperature comes back up to a low boil. Then turn off the heat.
Let the concoction sit and cool a bit while you set up a large bowl under a large sieve (or colander) that is lined with cheese cloth. Ladle the hot liquid into the cheesecloth.

Eventually, you'll end up with a seive full of cheese curds and a bowl of hot whey (which can be cooled and used in bread baking, added to the compost heap or, if you must, poured down the sink).

Allow the curds to cool enough so that you can handle them. Once you can handle the cheese, wrap the curds tight in the cheesecloth and squeeze out all the excess liquid that you can while at the same time forming a single, solid lump of cheese.

Contrary to what these photos tell you, DO use two hands for this procedure! (It's amazing how hard it is to squeeze the liquid from warm paneer while at the same time taking a photograph!)

Next, make sure the cheese is wrapped tight in the cheesecloth, set it in the sieve over an empty bowl, top it with a small plate or flat-bottomed container, and load on the canned goods, bricks, or other weights. Let the cheese continue to drain in the refrigerator overnight.

And... that's it. Next day, take the paneer out of the cheesecloth, cut it into cubes, and wrap or store it in plastic so it doesn't dry out. Paneer doesn't stay fresh long, having no salt or other preservatives. Use it up quick!

Part of this particular batch of paneer ended up in a pot of lentil dal, to which I added diced tomatoes and string beans, then served it all over steamed rice:

The rest of the paneer went into one of my housemate's spicy fish curries. YUM!!

OK. At this point, I'm done with cooking entries for a while. [ ... psych!]