fun with cheese!

[cellio]

magid recently linked to this recipe for making paneer, an Indian cheese. I like mattar paneer and generally use soft mozzerella for the cheese, so I decided to try making my own.

I started by boiling half a gallon of milk in an enamel pot (the only non-reactive dairy pot I have). A little milk burned onto the bottom of the pot, but it didn't affect the flavor and it came off after a soak and a scrub, so no harm done. First you bring the milk to a boil:
Then you add the lime juice and stir for several minutes. I thought the curds would get bigger, so when they didn't I added more juice, which was probably unnecessary.
This is what I got for curds. (For calibration, it's a four-quart pot.)
Someone was very interested in the proceedings:
After making curds and letting them sit undisturbed for a while, it was time to gather the curds in cheesecloth. The collander was to keep the cloth from going astray; the bowl was in case it looked like further processing of the whey would be relevant. (It wasn't -- nice and clear.)
Tie loosely and let drain for half an hour.
Wrap tightly to squeeze out remaining liquid and form a ball.
The ball that resulted half an hour later was pretty solid. I'm not sure, but it might have been too dry. The next step was to refrigerate for a few hours.
Now, on to the mattar paneer. The cheese crumbled a tiny bit while slicing, but held together.
Add the cheese to the skillet:
Yum!

Comments

[ichur72.livejournal.com]

Neat! I bet it was yummy, too.

[cellio]

In the mattar paneer it was yummy. By itself it was bland, which I expected given the lack of other ingredients and aging. :-)

[kayre]

Just lime juice? Wow! I wonder if that would work with LactAid milk. How's it taste?

[cellio]

Yeah, just lime juice -- I had no idea you could do that. (I don't know if lime is special or if any citrus will do.)

The cheese is kind of bland, which I expected for something with two ingredients and no aging. In the mattar paneer, though, it was pretty much perfect -- it soaked up the spices, which is what I suspect it's supposed to do, and had a nice texture after cooking.

I used about two-thirds of the ball in the mattar paneer. The page I linked to suggests frying the cheese, so I held some back to try that. (Haven't done that yet, though.)

I have no idea how long the cheese keeps in the fridge. Mine is only going to last a few days. :-)

[geekosaur]

Any citrus will do but will change the flavor; lime is traditional for paneer but I've heard of lemon and citron juice being used (hey, you always wondered what to do with the etrog afterward, right? :) — I'd imagine orange would produce a rather odd tasting paneer, though.

The key is acid, so even vinegar will work.

[hlinspjalda.livejournal.com]

I've used lemon juice and, in a pinch, cider vinegar. Lime juice sounds much nicer,though; I didn't know it was traditional.

I make mine into a flat cake and press it for a couple of hours. That way you get chunks that are something like tofu, or like the neat rectangular pieces I see in some Indian restaurants. I really like the look of the ball, though.

[dagonell.livejournal.com]

My wife and I do something similar to this all the time. We live in the country and get two gallons a week from the farmer. Difference is, we use rennet instead of lime. Put it in a big bowl, add the rennet, let it sit in a turned-off oven (pilot light on) all night. In the morning, cheese and whey. The whey is used to make bread. Yum!
-- Dagonell

[dr-zrfq.livejournal.com]

For some readers here there may be a kashrut issue with your version -- depends on whether it's animal rennet being used.

[magid.livejournal.com]

And there are potential issues with making dairy bread, if it looks like a regular loaf.

[dagonell.livejournal.com]

My apologies for any inadvertant offense. I am a ex-Christian and not familiar with all the subtleties of the other faiths.
-- Dagonell

[magid.livejournal.com]

No offense at all; I was just trying to be informative.

[cellio]

No offense taken, at least from the owner. :-) The others were presumably unsure about what I and/or my Jewish readers would know about and opted for caution.

[cellio]

I thought there would be a problem with pasteurized milk. (You get yours straight from the cow, right?) Obviously I was wrong: this worked fine.

How do you use the whey? Just straight substitution for an equal part of water?

[dagonell.livejournal.com]

First, yes we get our milk straight from the cow. However, *we* pasturize it at home. We bought a one-gallon pasturizing machine on e-bay. Pour milk into steel bucket. Insert bucket in machine. Turn machine on and fill sink with cold water and ice cubes. When machine buzzes take bucket out of machine and put in sink to cool rapidly and avoid 'cooked milk' taste. I can handle the bucket out of the machine, my wife requires a pot-holder.

Second, yes we substitute equal parts whey for water in making bread. And my wife says she leaves the milk in the oven for two nights to make cheese. And you skim the cream off the top so that only milk goes into the oven. A little cream is okay, she figures it's equal to what the stores sell as 2%.
-- Dagonell

[magid.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad it worked! I used lemon juice, because that was what I had, and it worked fine too. I ran out of time to do anything useful with the whey, unfortunately.

[cigfran-cg.livejournal.com]

I have used animal rennet, but most of the time use vegetable "rennet". It works just as well. Also, in the cheese Dagonell's talking about, I usually add some whey from a previous batch or from yogurt to culture it. Paneer isn't cultured, just coagulated, so I'd use an acid like citrus or vinegar in that case, too (rather than the rennet).

[cellio]

What can you do with the whey? Mine looked so clear that I assumed everything useful had been leeched out of it in the form of curds, so I tossed it. What should I do differently next time (other than using in bread as dagonell suggested)?

using whey

[cigfran-cg.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm not sure there's a whole lot of use for the acid precipitated whey. The whey from cultured cheese has a lot of the culturing bacteria in it, so it's most important use is as a starter for the next batch. Other than that, and the bread thing, it can be used in soups where'd you'd like a slight cheese flavour, or as cooking liquid for veggies.