Paneer

So we found a gallon of organic milk for $.99 at our local Cooperative Grocery Store
(it was dated the next day) and decided to make paneer. It was easy as, well, cheese. 🙂

Put the milk in a big pot. Heat to a boil, stirring regularly. Turn down to a simmer and add tablespoons of milk, one at a time, stirring constantly, until the curds and whey separate (you get white clumps and sort of greenish liquid). Keep stirring for a bit (~30 seconds) and then pour into a cheese-cloth lined colander. You can rinse it quickly to remove any lemony flavor if you want to at this point. You can also add spices of flavorings — cumin, salt, herbs, whatever. Gather together the cheesecloth ends and tie it together with a rubber band or something so there’s a ball of cheese curds that you then hang to drain for a while. You can then put it under a heavy pot or something to drain even more if you want a firmer cheese, or use it like ricotta in lasagna or whatever.

(As far as I can tell, Paneer and Farmer’s Cheese are the same, just from different cultures.)

We used half with green beans (well, yellow ones) to make a veg dish from Crescent Dragonwagon’s Passionate Vegetarian; it was good, but if we make it again we need to use more tomato so there’s more sauce. It’ll flavor the rice better at that point. The other half ended up in a casserole dish on the grill with some veggies and garlic, onion, etc. Also tasty. Paneer doesn’t melt, it just softens, so use it accordingly. I wanted to use it on kabobs, but it crumbled and wouldn’t let me poke the stick through. Oh well.