How to make your own cheese or paneer

http://www.kimberlycun.com/2011/06/13/how-to-make-your-own-cheese-or-paneer/

How to make your own cheese or paneer.

I’m really excited to share this because it’s so simple! This is actually an Indian recipe for making paneer, an almost tasteless crumbly white cheese, which, excitingly….can be flavoured however you like!

I’ve always fantasised about making my own cheese because cheeses are so expensive here! The only cheap cheeses are cheese slices which probably are not even real cheese and they taste like plastic.

There are only 2 ingredients that you need to make this basic cheese, milk and lemon juice! Excited yet?

Utensils you need:

1 tea towel or muslin cloth
2 pots
Something heavy like a chopping board or stone mortar (to weight the cheese down)

The ingredients:

1 litre of fresh milk
100 ml of lemon juice (or acid like white vinegar)

# – First pour the milk into a pot and bring it to boil on medium heat. Stir sometimes.

# – While the milk boils, set the teatowel over the other pot, like this…

# – When the milk starts bubbling, pour in the lemon juice bit by bit while stirring.

# – As you stir, you will notice that the milk begins to curdle. Looks like bashed up tofu. Stir for another minute or two.

# – Pour the content into the tea towel set up earlier to strain.

# – When you lift the tea towel up, you can see what’s left behind is a clear yellowish liquid. This is called whey. Some people use it to boil rice or something but I just discarded it…

# – Turn the pot upside down and place the drained curd (still in tea towel) on top.

# – Weigh it down with something heavy for 2 hours. You can do this in the sink cause it’s wet. Check out my style…

# – After 2 hours, cheese. DONE!

# – You can use it straightaway but if you want a less crumbly cheese you could knead it a few minutes to soften the texture, which I did. If you want to flavour it, you should chuck in the flavourings at this point…parsley, garlic, dried fruits…make it happen!

# – Wrap it up in clingwrap if you’re not going to use it immediately.

# – Keeps for 5 days in the fridge.