The thing that I love most about Indian cuisine is Paneer. Not Samosas, not naan, not butter chicken, nor dosas… My favourite is anything with paneer. It has a wonderful texture that holds up in any type of curry. It lends itself to any application whether fried, sautéed, in a rich spicy flavourful curry or with spinach and peas. It’s a great type of cheese that is also so easy to make! I flavoured the cheese with toasted cumin, fennel, and black peppercorns but you can leave it plain or add different spices to it if you want.
The trick to making paneer is patience. You can’t rush things or else it won’t work. Use good quality milk and a cheese cloth that’s big enough and you’re basically set! Oh, and a pan that can hold 4 litres of milk too…
Final product:
Ingredients:
4 Litres of Full fat milk (at least 3.25%)
500 mL of Cremo Half and Half (10%)
Juice of 1/2 a lemon
3 Tbsp of Vinegar
1 tsp Fennel seeds
1 tsp Cumin seeds
1 tsp Black Peppercorn
1/2 tsp Sea Salt
Equipment: Large pot that can hold 4L of liquid, A large clean cheese cloth, patience.
1. Toast the fennel seeds, cumin seeds, and black pepper corn in a dry hot pan until they start to smoke. Add some sea salt. Set aside to cool.
2. Get a large pot and pour in the whole fat milk and cremo. Set the heat on medium low.
3. Roll a lemon to get juices flowing, cut in half and juice into a bowl.
4. Stir
5. Empty out one side of the sink.
6. Rinse and wring out the cheese cloth in clean cold water.
7. Drape it over a colander to have it ready.
8. Stir making S patterns in the milk constantly scraping the bottom so the milk doesn’t burn.
9. Crush up the toasted spices in a mortar and pestle. Don’t crush it to a powder but make sure the Black Peppercorn is just broken up. Set aside for later.
10. Stir some more.
11. I used a double boiler to press out my cheese because the bottom pot catches the whey that comes out of the cheese. It’s also big enough to put heavy things on top.
12. Keep stirring until it gets really frothy. Notice how the milk coats the spoon as it gets hotter. This can take a while (20 mins+) Just stand there and keep stirring. Be patient!
Me killing time while stirring the damn milk. It takes a while…
13. Yay! It’s hot enough! Once it begins to look like steamed milk with frothy milk on top, turn off the heat, add the lemon juice. Keep stirring. It will immediately curdle and the whey will begin to separate.
14. At this point, I wasn’t really happy with just the lemon juice because it wasn’t curdling enough, so I added some vinegar to help it out. It was done curdling like lightening after that! The clear yellowish liquid is the whey.
15. Pour it out into the prepared cheese cloth in the sink. Careful, don’t burn yourself! Add spices, and mix it in.
16. Grab the corners and twist the top to get all the liquid out.
17. Place in your preferred vessel for squeezing out all the liquid from the cheese. I put the heaviest things I could find on top of the cheese, and filled the milk jug with water and placed it on top. Leave it for 2 hours.
18. 2 hours later, you will have paneer! Refrigerate until you need to use it.
Paneer by it self won’t have a lot of flavour unless you add salt and spices. You can now use this in any dish that calls for paneer.
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