Home made Paneer-Indian cheese

Paneer, Chenna or Indian cheese is very important part of Indian cuisine.

It can be used as cubes in various spicy curries or in crumbled form for Bengali sweets like rasgulla, sandesh , Kalakand which are all time favorite desserts in India.

So here is the recipe for fresh home made paneer for those who like to make it fresh at home and for those who don't have access to this simple yet important ingredient in their part of world.



Ingredients:
1 liter cow’s milk
2 tblspn vinegar or lemon juice or 250 gm Yoghurt
This will make 1 1/4 cup Paneer(curdled milk)

Method:
Bring the milk to a boil in a heavy bottomed pan, stirring continuously.

After the first boil add vinegar and stir the milk gently.

Instead of vinegar you can also use Yoghurt which will accelerate the curdling and also adds to fat content to make rich Paneer.

The milk will start to curdle and the whey gets separated and leave for two minutes till it get separated completely. Turn off the heat now.

Set the muslin cloth on the sieve (if you don't have muslin cloth then soup sieve can be used directly),pour the curdled milk onto it.

Fold the cloth and squeeze the Paneer lightly about 3 to 4 times so that most of the whey gets drained out.

Remove the Paneer from cloth and now its ready to use for sweets like rasgulla , kalakand etc

To use it in Indian gravies like matar paneer, palak paneer , paneer tikka or a rice dish , you will need Paneer in form of blocks.

So knead the paneer well with bare hands or food processor. This will help Paneer to hold itself together much better.

Wrap this Paneer in a cloth and press it under some heavy weight for few hours in refrigerator.Then cut it into cubes of same size.

Paneer made at home is softer, tastier and unadulterated as compared to the one which we get in markets.

Note:

Medium fat content Cow's milk is always better because if you take high fat content milk the Panner will be more creamy and will be difficult to get into the blocks. But if you take low fat content milk then you will get very less amount of Paneer out of the milk.

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