Eid Mubarak to all my friends and their families. Today's post is about homemade paneer and it was on my to-do list for such a long time now. Paneer is a type of fresh cheese which means, you can make it and eat it right away. It does not require aging or culturing. It is also one of the easiest cheeses to make at home. All you need is milk, lemon juice or vinegar or curd. When you mix the milk and lemon juice, the acidity in the lemon juice will cause the milk to separate into curds and whey. Remove the whey and press the curds, and you have a basic homemade paneer.
Being a non-veg lover, I never focus too much on Paneer or Mushroom recipes. However, now I am interested in these recipes mainly because of Happy and the blog. Happy doesn't show much interest in milk hence I am trying to include other sources of calcium in her diet. Also, I am getting requests for more paneer recipes from my regular readers. Please check out my Paneer Butter Masala and Chilli Paneer dry which I have posted earlier. Also, check out the very famous Bengali sweet Rasagulla made using Paneer.
Ingredients:Milk - 1 Litre
Lemon Juice - 2 tsp(or) Vinegar - 2 tsp(or) Curd - 1/4 Cup
Method:
1. In a saucepan, bring the milk to boil. When it is boiling, reduce the flame to medium and add the vinegar or lemon juice or curd. Now the milk will start to curdle and the whey(the watery part of the milk) separate leaving the cheese(Paneer).
2. Keep stirring and once the whey is clear and the paneer is separated completely switch off the flame. (The last image in the below collage shows the clear whey)
3. Now strain the paneer in a cheese cloth placed on top of a container/vessel. The whey collected in the container can be used while making the paneer gravies or it can be used while making roti's. If you use lemon for curdling, then wash it in running water as shown below. Drain the water completely.
4. Tie the cheesecloth on the kitchen tap as shown below or you can hang it somewhere else for the water to drip completely for about 30 minutes. You can finally squeeze the remaining excess water. Then flatten the paneer ball a little and place it on top of a plate as shown below. Above this place a flat heavy weight and allow it to rest for 2 to 3 hours. (I missed clicking this step. I placed a dosa pan on top of this and to press it down , I had placed a 5-litre oil can). The middle picture below shows the separated whey.
5. Now the paneer is ready and you can slice it into cubes using a sharp knife. If you want clean pieces then refrigerate for an hour before slicing.
The homemade paneer is ready to make any gravy of your choice. I made Mattar paneer which I will be posting it soon. Check out my Paneer Butter Masala, Chilli Paneer Dry and Rasagulla too.
- Setting time of 2 to 3 hours is very important to get perfect cubes after slicing. Also, to get clean pieces refrigerate it for an hour before slicing. While setting the paneer, the cloth should be tightly wrapped around the paneer so that it won't crumble while slicing.
- I used full cream milk for making the paneer.
- If you are using lemon juice to curdle the milk then wash the paneer twice to remove the lemon flavour from the paneer. I ran out of lemon and curd when I was clicking this post and hence I used vinegar. I usually prefer using curd for the good quality paneer.
- The cheese cloth used should effectively drain the water for perfect paneer. So choose the cheese cloth carefully. You can use a normal dhoti cloth or cotton dupatta.
- Keep stirring after the milk curdles. otherwise, it will stick to the bottom and burn.
- While the paneer is hanging for draining the water, you can gently squeeze the water once or twice.
Happy's Cook - Divya
Homemade is always good.. perfect looking paneer cubes :)
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