The First First Taste – Panir Cheese

Picking the first recipe of 2013 turned out to be a much more difficult task than I had expected. Where do I start? Should I make some rules to help me make a decision? Should I attempt a complicated meal or keep it simple on my first go-around  There were many variables to consider. So instead of thumbing through my cookbook collection for my initial inspiration, I decided to do the logical thing and see what I had in the fridge and pantry and do some reverse engineering.

Although my house is chock-full of delicious and random ingredients, my refrigerator happened to have two past-prime items sitting right on the top shelf – a half gallon of soured raw grass-fed milk and a sad looking shriveled up lemon. Although most people would toss the soured milk and turn up their nose at that sad lemon, I could see their potential and remembered a recipe that I had read about years ago in The Vegetarian Table: India.  I tracked down my copy of the book and found the recipe I was looking for  – Homemade Panir Cheese. The recipe promised that even a first timer can master this unripened fresh cheese. The odds were promising, I had all of the ingredients and I’ve owned this book for nearly 10 years without attempting even ONE of these recipes so my decision was made.

There are only two ingredients in traditional Indian Panir (also spelled Paneer) – milk and lemon juice. If you buy this cheese at the grocery store, you’re likely to find lots of other strange ingredients and preservatives. After making my first batch of cheese, I say screw that, you can TOTALLY make your own at home! Here are three reasons why you should take on this challenge:

1. Making Panir from scratch is actually cheeper than buying it pre-made.

2. It’s a great way to use use up your less-than-fresh milk and lemons.

3. Bragging rights. Making cheese at home automatically makes you a badass.

All you need to get started is: 1/2 gallon of milk (I used raw, whole, organic and grass-fed but any full-fat milk will work), 1/4 cup lemon juice (fresh is best), a stock pot, a fine-mesh colander, a slotted spoon, cheese cloth or a tea towel, a cutting board and something that’s flat and heavy (I used a large frying pan).

To make the cheese, all you need to do is pour the milk into your pot and bring it to a boil. Stir occasionally so that the milk doesn’t  burn.

Once the milk comes to a boil, reduce to a simmer and add the lemon juice. Gently stir.

You’ll start to see those curds and whey Little Miss Muffet spoke of.

Keep stirring until no additional curds form. The liquid that remains is the yellowish whey.

Set your colander up over a bowl and line it with your towel.

Using your slotted spoon, transfer the solids into your towel-lined colander. Then pour all of the whey and small pieces in.

Once all of the curds are in the towel, run cold water over the cheese to rinse away the lemon juice.

Now, gather the corners of the towel, make a ball and squeeze the excess liquid out of your cheese.

After you’ve squeezed the liquid out, the cheese will look something like this:

Wrap your cheese back up and flatten it as best as you can. Put your cheese package on a slanted surface draining into the sink.

Put something heavy on top of your parcel. Now… find something to keep your mind off the cheese for 30 minutes to two hours.

When you come back, you’re cheese will look like this.

Hooray you made cheese. A hearty thumbs up is in order.

It’s as simple as that! I assure you, it took far longer to write up this blog post than it took to actually make a block of cheese at home. This stuff is super delicious and worth the 15 minutes (plus a few hours of anxiously waiting) to make it. Once you have your Panir, the sky is the limit. You just slice this up, fry it up in some ghee or oil and let your imagination go wild. The finished product is a firm, toothsome (not melty) cheese that will hold up in any dish. This cheese is destined for a batch of Palak Panir, one of my all time favorite Indian dishes, but that’s another recipe all together!

All in all, I would say the first recipe of 2013 was a success. I cleaned out my fridge, finally made a recipe out of that darn cookbook and got to enjoy a fantastic new treat with my husband. The bar has been set pretty high for my next recipe. I’m certain I won’t be able to find another dish that requires so few ingredients and is simultaneously so satisfying. It’s a good thing I have so many books to pull from. I’m up for the challenge.