I am starting to go a little stir crazy waiting for spring so I decided it was time to start experimenting with some things today, so I made some farm cheese today, also called paneer
So I grabbed a gallon of milk, some vinega, kosher salt, sesame seeds and a drain bag
I dumped the milk into a pot and got it on some heat to bring it to a slow boil
I dumped the sesame seeds into s pan and put that on a high heat to toast them,
you want to make sure you stir constantly so the seeds don't burn, it will start to give off a almost popcorn smell, once they were browned, I pulled them off the heat
all the while stirring the milk, once it started to roll, I killed the heat and measured out a 1/2 cup of vinegar
you want to slowly pour the vinegar into the hot milk as you stir, which causes the curds and the whey to separate
after stirring for several minutes, I set the drain bag into the strainer
and dumped the curds into the strainer
I twisted the bag to get some of the excess whey out, at this point you could almost use it like a fresh ricotta
instead I took about a tablespoon of kosher salt
and worked it into the curds to make a firmer cheese and worked on twisting some more whey out
I dumped about half of the sesame seeds into the curds
and worked it into the curds and twisted it and set it back in the strainer and set it on a paper plate
I set a bowl on top of the ball of cheese
and rigged up my redneck cheese press with a 35 pound weight
couple of notes, you can all add sorts of different herbs and spices to change the flavor. If you wanted to make a more traditional Indian Paneer, you could use lemon juice instead of vinegar. Be careful with the milk so you don't scorch it, a double boiler system might be better for you. I did have a little scorching but after tasting a piece of the curd it gave it a little smoky flavor which ties in well with the toasted sesame seeds. Biggest issue is it is gonna be a pain to clean the pan
I saved the whey and stuck it in the fridge, I might use that tomorrow to make some bagels to spread the cheese on
I'll post a pic after I pull the cheese out of the press
so I woke up this morning and my cheese was gone! no one would look me in the eye, but I have my list of suspects! So I decided to make some more but use a double boiler method so the milk wasn't scorched. So I grabbed a pot
and placed a 5 pound weight in the bottom to keep the pan up off the bottom of the pan and filled it with water to just cover the weight
I nested another pan inside the bottom one
and dumped in a gallon of milk
using a double boiler method is much quicker and easier, you can crank the heat up to get the water boiling in the bottom and hardly have to stir the milk at all which gave me time to work on some other things, seemed within 15 minutes the milk was boiling, so I dumped in the vinegar and it quickly separated
I needed to drain and had not sent my drain bag through the wash yet, so I grabbed the next best thing, a t-shirt
I dumped the curds
no scorching
and massaged in a little more salt to season the cheese more, and tied off the bag and set up my redneck cheese press again
I let it press for 3 hours and it was ready to be dusted
now I got to find a place to hide it!
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