Making Paneer at home

Indian Cottage Cheese or Paneer (as we call it in India) is a popular ingredient in our spicy masala recipes. 

Making paneer at home is very easy and requires no special skill. 

All you will need is raw milk and some acidic ingredient to make sure that your milk is broken. You can use vinegar or lemon juice.

Heat milk (preferably full fat milk) in a thickly bottomed vessel. When the milk is about to attain boiling point, add lemon juice to it.

You will see the milk solids and the whey getting separated. Stir gently a couple of times and switch off the flame. Allow the curdled milk to settle down for few minutes.

Pour everything on a clean cloth or handkerchief. Collect the milk solids in the cloth while the whey is drained out.

Twist the cloth tightly to remove out any remaining whey from the milk solid.

While the milk solid is still covered in the cloth, hold it under running water. This way you can wash it for a couple of minutes.

Remove water by twisting the cloth tightly once again. Place it on a sieve and leave for half an hour so that the traces of water or whey if any get drained out.

Now, transfer the washed and cleaned milk solids into a large plate and crumble it.

Knead it well for few minutes so that your paneer is soft and free from any hard knots.

You will be able to join everything together like dough. 

Now, pat it slightly to form a small flat circular shape.

Place a heavy weight object on this flat milk solid and leave untouched for atleast 3 hours. 

Since I did not have any considerably heavy weight object, I sandwiched the milk solid between 2 plates. And on the top plate, I placed a vessel filled with water.

Carefully cut the tightly pressed milk solid which is now called as paneer (or cottage cheese). 

Big paneer cubes or thin paneer pieces; the choice is yours. Paneer does not melt.

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