Cookery School - Home-made paneer

I attended this class at Mrs. B. N.’s years ago – I didn’t blog then, and practiced my lesson today, so today is the day this lesson comes to light!

Too many run-ins with rubbery store-bought paneer had made Mrs. B. N. start making paneer at home. Nowadays, of course, one gets soft-soft-soft paneer – under the name of ‘Fresh Paneer’ - at stores, but back then, the sure-fire way to get luscious mounds of creamy paneer was to make it at home.

Mrs. B.N.’s trick was to use buttermilk to curdle the milk rather than the commonly-used lemon or vinegar. My personal take on this is that a milder souring agent like buttermilk gives softer, bigger chunks of curd as against an intense one like lemon – which results in tighter, smaller, drier almost-granules. But since lemon is the most well-documented curdling agent, I guess I must have gone about it the wrong way, with lemon.

Mrs. B. N.’s recipe is incredibly easy, gives amazingly velvety soft-yet-dense paneer and the final product is ever so much more economical than store-bought fresh paneer, that’s it’s a useful weapon in your kitchen arsenal. Especially if you plan to make a paneer dish in a large-ish quantity.

So here goes –

1. Boil 1 litre of milk. Use a really big vessel, a size or two larger than the one you would use to simply boil it.

2. Just when its about to rise (boiling point), add 1 cup of sour buttermilk (chhas)

3. Stir gently; the curds will immediately start separating from the whey. Turn off the gas if necessary (if the milk shows signs of boiling over)


4. Strain through cheesecloth (or a simple thin cotton hanky/towel will do, too), and twist the cheesecloth around the curds, so you get a temporary bag which holds the curds. Wash away the excess sourness (just hold the cheesecloth bag under running water for a minute).

5. Leave it to drain on a draining board (a chopping board will do or any plain surface for that matter), with a heavy weight on top – I used a mortar (of mortar-and-pestle), but a pressure cooker filled with water is ace too. Leave it this way, with enough space for the excess whey to drain away. DO NOT keep for more than 3-4 minutes, since the longer you keep it under a weight, the more whey will drain out, and the harder and more rubbery will be the final product.

My sophisticated gadgetry for paneer-making!

6. As soon as the paneer starts holding its shape within the cheesecloth, take off the weight, gently remove the cheesecloth, and slice up the paneer in cubes/fingers/what have you. Use as desired.




I used up today’s batch of paneer in making 2 classic dishes – Paneer Chilly (of Indo-Chinese fame) and Kadhai Paneer.

Both recipes are very generic, with several variants available online. But I kind of went with the culinary flow and followed my own star …err….recipe. :)

Paneer Chilly:

Stir-fry onions (cut in long tendrils), thin batons of capsicum and slit green chillies along with some minced garlic in oil over high heat. Add soy sauce, vinegar, salt and sugar. Add some water, and then adjust the consistency with a slurry of cornflour-dissolved-in-water till you get the shiny gluey gravy that is so dear to Indian-Chinese cuisine. Add fingers of paneer, turn off the heat. Enjoy.

No quantities listed here, because its all as per taste – be sure to make it really sharp and spicy, though.

Kadhai Paneer:

Ingredients:

1. 2 cups paneer, cut in 1.5 cm-cubes
2. 1 small onion – ground to a paste with 3-4 cloves of peeled garlic, ¼ tsp cumin seeds and 1.5 cm long stick of cinnamon
3. 1 medium onion - cut in square dice (approximately same size as that of the paneer)
4. Ditto with 1 large capsicum
5. Garam Masala – ½ tsp (to taste)
6. Salt and sugar, to taste
7. Tomato puree – ½ Tetrapack ()
8. Tomato ketchup - 2 tbsp
9. Oil – 3 tsp


Method:


1. Stir fry the onion and capsicum dice in 2 tsps oil till the onion just starts taking a light golden colour. Drain and keep aside.

2. To the same pan, add1 tsp oil, and stir fry the onion-garlic-cinnamon-cumin paste

3. Once the oil starts separating, add the tomato puree and ketchup. Stir over medium heat till the oil starts separating at the edges

4. Add garam masala and red chilli powder, and stir for a minute

5. Add salt and sugar as per taste

6. Add the fried onion and capsicum pieces and the paneer cubes.

7. Turn down the heat and adjust the seasoning. (In my case the gravy was a bit sour (went overboard with the tomato puree) - so added 1 tbsp of cream to balance it out. But that’s not a classic kadhai paneer)

8. Garnish with chopped coriander and/or crushed kasoori methi.

9. Serve piping hot-with parathas/rotis