HOMEMADE PANEER

Paneer, Indian cottage cheese is made by curdling milk and then draining off thewhey using a muslin cloth. The cheese that is got is pressed to cubes. Making paneer at home is very easy and there is no rocket science involved to get the perfect soft paneer each time you make. Most store brought paneer contains additives. Here I used critic acid but you can make paneer by using lemon juice or curd or vinegar and the quality is much better that the store brought one. For making paneer, I suggest using fresh whole milk.

INGREDIENTS: 

1½ liter Milk

½ teaspoon Citric Acid Crystals / 1 1/2  to 2 tablespoon Lemon Juice / 1/4  cup Curd

UTENSILS REQUIRED:

Strainer

Plain Muslin Cloth

Heavy Object like Mortar

Plates

METHOD:

STEP 1 - Bring milk to boil, reduce the flame.

STEP 2 - Add citric acid crystals to the boiled milk gradually to get soft paneer.

STEP 3 - Immediately you can see the entire milk begins to curdle, switch off the flame.

Add 1 cup of cold water in it and allow it to settle for 15 minutes.

STEP 4 - Place the muslin cloth in a strainer in another big vessel and pour curdled milk into it to remove whey.

STEP 5 -  Wash under running water to remove the smell of citric acid, if there is any.

STEP 6 - Now squeeze the muslin cloth and tie it above the sink for about 15 -30 minutes so that the whey gets drained easily.

Gently squeeze bag, make sure that all the whey has drained.

STEP 7 - Place the muslin cloth on a plate with wholes, place a heavy object on it for the paneer to set. After 1 hour, remove the cloth and cut the paneer in to cubes. Refrigerate it for further use. [pic is not available[

STEP 8 – Here your homemade paneer is ready to use.

NOTE: If using curd for curdling then no need to wash the paneer.

             If your milk doesn't curdle after adding citric acid crystals then add some lemon juice to the milk.

             If you continue cooking after the milk get curdled, paneer can become hard.

            You can add vinegar instead of citric acid, lemon juice or curd.

            You can use the whey for making the paratha dough.

*Something Important:
Often it happens that the homemade paneer cubes just breaks off when we start cooking them in the gravy.There are many reasons for that. But we can save our paneer cubes from braking by adding corn flour to the paneer. I suggest using corn flour only if you had an experience with broken cubes in the gravy recipes.  Knead the paneer after STEP 6. There should be no water left it must be moist only. Add 15 teaspoons corn flour, knead it again thoroughly. Mkae a nice moist rectangle in a plate if neede can wet your palm to make a moist rectangle. Cover the plate with moist cloth and refrigerate for 1 hour. Cut to cubes after it set.