Paneer

Original Recipe: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Paneer/Detail.aspx

I made my own cheese! That’s right, you heard me. It was like magic, easy, delicious magic. D. was coming over this weekend, and, as usual, I asked her from which country our dinner should originate. She said India. With so many options for Indian food, and D. and J. (S.’s sister) chipping in, I went overboard. I found this recipe on my Allrecipes app, and it looked too easy not to try it. Plus milk was on sale.

Substitutions:

None

Final Result Impressions: 
The above photos chronicle my process in making the cheese. It seriously could not have been easier. Boil a gallon of milk. Once it boils, add a quart of buttermilk, stirring continuously. The second photo shows what happened when I did that. After that, it was simply a matter of straining out the whey (which my cats LOVED), processing it until it was smooth, and refrigerating it. It needed to be refrigerated so it’d be more solid and manageable when it came time to fry. And fry we did. We also ate it all. It was delicious.

Cost v. Outcome
Ingredients
◦1 gallon milk…………………..On sale ~ $2
◦1 quart buttermilk…………..One quart ~ $2
◦2 cups oil for frying…………Had on-hand, 1 quart ~ $3
Yields: ~ one pound of cheese

This is a recipe I would definitely try again. And again. And again. In fact, I might just make more cheese this weekend. Because I can. And also because I filtered the oil I used to fry the first batch, so I won’t be using any extra oil to fry this batch. BONUS: The fried paneer can be frozen and eaten later. Awesome.