Paneer or Cottage Cheese is a common ingredient in most of the North Indian side dishes. Also, there are varieties of sweets which calls for Paneer as the primary ingredient. Since Paneer is easily available in super markets and convenience stores, most of the people prefer to buy them instead of preparing it at home. If you have enough time, preparing Paneer at home is not a big deal.
Here is the recipe of Home - made Paneer..
Time required: 30 - 35 minutes
Hanging time and refrigeration time: 2 hours
Yield : 25 pieces
Ingredients:
- Full cream milk: 1 1/4 liter
- Half lime
- A Muslin cloth
Method:
- Heat the milk in a vessel and bring to boil.
- Once it starts boiling, add 1 table spoon of lime juice and stir it nicely. Keep it on medium flame and stir regularly.
- After 1 - 2 minutes, add one more spoon of lime juice. You can see the milk starts curdling slowly.
- Add little more lime juice if required. Keep stirring the mixture regularly.
- After boiling it for 15 - 20 minutes, all the fat separates and the water turns into pale green color.
- Switch off the flame and pour the mixture onto the muslin cloth.
- Expose the mixture to tap water once, to remove the citrus content.
- Tie the paneer mixture inside the cloth and hang it onto a hook or tap for 1 1/2 hours.
- Then, spread the paneer mixture on a flat surface and knead it nicely without any lumps.
- Pat it into a square or rectangular shape and keep refrigerated for 30 minutes.
- Take out the paneer and cut into desired shapes.
- While adding paneer cubes to any side dishes, shallow fry them on the tava to avoid them from breaking.
Tips:
- Dont discard the water which you get while preparing the paneer. This water, known as Paneer Ka Pani is good for health. You can replace the plain water for side dishes with Paneer Ka Pani.
