Paneer (Cheese)

Here is another long neglected picture that is in my instagram and facebook pages and yet people I know are wanting me to write an easy recipe. Here you do not need a drop of rennant. This is straight forward. My brother in law sent me this mulmul cloth from Pakistan. Here I am so lucky and for people who live abroad please ask your family people to send you this. Now for the ones that are not so lucky go and get a white t-shirt and a white one at that and brand new and keep that aside for making cheese only.

When you are finished you have to wash it out in some soapy water to clean it and let it air dry. I dry my mulmul cloth after washing it out and hang it on the shopping cart, I mean the ones you use to take your groceries when you are going to the store that is what I mean. When you wash it get a large mixing bowl put the mulmul cloth or makeshift one you made from a t-shirt and put some dish soap on it. Let it soak a few minutes and them squeeze the suds through and rub gently and rinse until all of the soap is out of it then hang to dry. You can also hang on a hanger. Never toss it in to the dirty clothes because this is how you are going to make cheese for now on if you do it in this manner.

You do not want your laundry to contaminate your mulmul cloth or even your makeshift one. This is way better then using a cheese cloth in the stores here in USA. The holes are too big for one and most of the curds would go down the drain along with the whey. This is what you do not want.

It was tricky at first and I asked one of my sister in laws because she makes paneer and yogurt a lot and her advice really helped on how I am making paneer.

We was talking about ayib earlier today and this is the same process and their cheese is crumbly and I will get to that later at the end of this post. I put a pot on the stove and added 1/2 gallon or 2 liters of milk on the stove to boil. I kept a close eye on it because I did not want it to boil over and scorch. I had the burner on low and waited til it boiled and I added 3 tbs of white vinegar.

This curdles the milk instantly and when you see the curds separate from the whey and turn a pale yellow it is time to turn the stove off cover the pot for 20 minutes.

I take a medium mixing bowl and medium colander that fits over it then I lay my mulmul cloth over it. The people using a brand spanking new plain white t-shirt go ahead and put that in to your colander with a bowl under it or wait you can go to a store that sells pakistani and indian clothing to give you a white cotton dubutta (huge white scarf) which works a lot better then the t-shirt oops. I’m sorry just use this but if not a t-shirt it is then, my bad and I am sorry.

They should oblige and sell you the white cotton dubutta.

I strained my curdled milk in to this prepped colander already. The whey should come away easily and the solids remain.

I discard my whey and some do keep it. If you choose to keep it to make protein shakes later and that is ok too. I let all of this liquid drain from this solid mass. This usually takes a while and it is ok. after 1 hour that I squeeze it until it turns in to a firm ball and put it in the fridge with more of the liquid coming out which should be more then a mere trickle.

Now if you want a crumbly type of cheese like ricotta, that is ok too because then it is perfect for making ravioli or stuffed shells and also manacotti.

Now for ayib which is the Ethiopian crumbly cheese is very straight froward and you can go ahead and mix it with 3 tbs of yogurt.

This is usually eaten to cut the hotness of the chilies and also this is a farmer’s cheese the Mexicans eat and can be found on some of their tacos. They eat a lot of sour cream and cheese because their food is so spicy.

Well I hope this is a help. Look at the pictures below.