Easy Peasy Paneer

This is one of my FAVORITE ways to make (and clearly, eat!) paneer.

For those who have never been exposed to paneer, it is a form of cottage cheese. If ricotta and mozzarella had a baby, it would look pretty close to paneer (known as chhana in Bengali).

It is used in savory and sweet applications, all over India, but mostly in the Northwestern and Northeastern parts.

Some key features of the cheese:

1. It has no true flavor of it's own, similar to ricotta/mozzarella
2. It does NOT melt - so it works really well cooked stove top, grilled or fried
3. It works well with most flavor profiles

Where is Paneer available you ask? Any Indian store will carry blocks of paneer that you can cut up into cubes. But - I will also give you my recipe for making paneer at home (not a requirement, and it's easy, but a little labor intensive, and you have to make it the day before, so your choice!)

OK, now that we've got that out of the way, let's get to business!

How to make paneer:

Ingredients
1 gallon of whole FULL FAT milk (it's the fat that makes the cheese, so feel free to use skim milk, but you won't even get 5 ounces of cheese from a whole gallon!!)
1 cup of vinegar/lemon juice/lime juice

Bring the milk to a boil in a pot, stirring continuously (or the paneer will get a burnt flavor from sticking to the bottom of the pot). When the milk is lightly boiling, pour in the vinegar, and keep stirring, but gently. Do not stir too vigorously at this point! The milk solids (cheese bits) will separate from the liquids, and the remaining liquid will lose its opaque white color and start turning a clearer, greenish/grayish color. This is NORMAL, don't freak!

Turn off the heat. In a colander or any kind of draining device, spread out a double layered piece of cheese cloth, and pour in the liquid mixed with cheese bits to drain. Tie the edges of the cheese cloth together and hang it somewhere. I tend to hang it on the kitchen sink faucet. Let it drain that way for about 2-3 hours, then with your hands, form it in kind of a disc shape, put it on a plate, cover it with a flat plate and put something heavy on it. It can be a few cans of food, or a container with other food in it. Anything heavy is fine. Put this in your fridge overnight. This process drains off the remaining bit of liquid in the cheese, and turns it into a compressed solid. This solid can then be cut up into cubes.

There are two ways to use the cheese cubes when you're going to cook it in a sauce - plain or fried. I tend to prefer the fried kind, tastes so much better, and actually absorbs the flavor of the sauce much better too. If you choose plain, go to "How to make Easy Peasy Paneer". If you want to fry them, shallow or deep fry them a handful at a time, and soak the fried cheese cubes in a bowl with warm water (please trust me on this - the cheese gets really melt-in-your-mouth soft!)

How to make Easy Peasy Paneer:

What you need:

Ingredients
1 large onion
1 medium tomato
Piece of ginger the size of your thumb
5-7 cloves of garlic
About 20 cashews
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 cup of milk
1 cup of frozen peas (fresh are fine too, you just have to cook them longer)
2 tablespoons Oil
Salt to taste
1/2 teaspoon Sugar

Spices
Whole garam masala (2 cloves, 2 cardamom pods, 1 cinnamon stick)
1 Bay Leaf (dried OK)
2 teaspoons coriander powder
2 teaspoons cumin powder
1 teaspoon chilli powder
1 teaspoon garam masala powder

What to do:

Make a paste with the onion, tomato, ginger and garlic. In a hot pan with a bit of oil with high heat, fry the whole garam masala and bay leaf for a minute, and add the paste. Fry till the paste is dry and browned.
Lower the heat to medium. Add the tomato paste and the spice powders, salt and sugar, and saute for a minute.

Blend the milk and cashews together. Add more milk if the paste is thick. Add the mixture to the pan. Stir continuously. Add water, so that the thickness resembles a smoothie.

Strain the paneer (if you fried them), and throw in the cubes, as well as the peas. Cover and simmer until the peas are cooked (about 5-7 minutes for frozen peas).

Top with a tiny bit of chopped cilantro, or serve as is.

This dish works well with rice, or any kind of flatbreads like naan, paratha or roti. I know you're gonna love it!