Food = Love Indian Paneer Cheese {Recipe Guest Post}

I am pleased to share an authentic Indian paneer cheese recipe today from Susan Saldanha. She is a Columbus cook originally hailing from India who teaches custom cooking classes about Indian culinary traditions for groups and individuals in your home. Contact Susan by email to experience her healthy, delicious take on Indian cooking. 

June 2012 was memorable because I went back home to India after eight long years. Landing in Mumbai India I was hit by the heat, the humidity, the flood of humanity and a hunger in your belly. I began to realize I missed all of this so much.

My mom grumbling to a visiting neighbor awakened me one sweltering afternoon. In muted tones she said "Mrs. Advani, please stop sending food. All the neighbors bring her food claiming it was her favorite dish when she was a girl and I don’t get a chance to cook for her. After all, she’s my daughter visiting after eight years."

In India, Food= Love and believe me I had a lot of good “love” growing up.

Today I will share with you a taste of my Motherland: a Paneer cheese recipe. This is often eaten in the US as Mattar Paneer (peas and paneer) or Palak Paneer (spinach and paneer). Paneer comes from Northern India. It is a fresh milk cheese that is easy to make. Highly nutritious, it is a great source of protein. Its subtle flavor profile allows it to absorb the Indian spices very nicely but can be eaten by itself as a delicious ‘anytime-snack.’

How to Make Paneer

Ingredients

• 4 cups of whole milk

• 3/4cup sour cream or yogurt (sour cream adds a decadent lusciousness to the paneer)

• Cheesecloth folded over to give you four layers

• Colander

• Heavy bottomed pan

Method:

1. Bring the milk to a boil on a medium flame in the heavy bottomed pan. Keep the flame on medium as milk burns very easily and will add a burnt taste to your paneer.
2. Add the sour cream and keep stirring gently. Turn the heat up to high to facilitate the curdling process.
3. The milk will begin to appear lumpy and will have light green whey around it.
4. Strain the whey in a cheesecloth lined colander.
5. While the paneer is still in the colander run cold water over the paneer till it cools down. Squeeze as much of the extra water out of the paneer as you can by twisting the lose ends of the cheesecloth.
6. While still in the cheesecloth place the paneer under a weight (a heavy pan or a foil lined brick) on your counter for about 1-2 hours.
7. Unwrap the paneer and cut it into cubes. It’s ready to eat.
8. Paneer keeps in the refrigerator for up to 3 days. Freezing is possible and cutting it into cubes before you freeze it is a good idea. After thawing you have to lightly fry (preferably in homemade ghee) on both sides before you use it in cooking or else it tends to break apart.

Serving suggestions:

In my home we eat paneer fresh and love it with a slight drizzle of honey or on a toothpick with a small piece of pineapple and a sprinkle of chaat masala. (Chaat masala is a spice blend used on a variety of snacks and has spicy, salty, and sweet tones. It is available in any Indian grocery store.)

Note from Rachel: Our favorite Indian cooking book is 1,000 Indian Recipes by Neelam Batra.

Laurel Valley Creamery {Farm Profile}

Nestled around soft Southern Ohio hills there is a winding road that leads to Laurel Valley Farm and Creamery. On one side of the rumbling stone lane is the farm house, creamery rooms, and calf pens. On the other, the milking barn.

Cows to Cheese

Celeste and Nick Nolan manage the farm that has been in Nick's family for decades. They express gratitude that they are able to carry on the family tradition but also frustration with  the facilities that were left in decline for some time.

Nick is the cow man. He raises calves, moves the herd around the pastures and milks the cows daily. The pastured raw milk rests in a huge container that holds it at a chilled temperature until Celeste makes it into cheese.

The creamery is a converted outbuilding that now houses three rooms. In the first, Celeste adds culture into raw milk. Depending on the desired cheese variety, the milk is heated, stirred, cut into curds, pressed and/or flavored with locally grown herbs and peppers.

Some cheeses go from the processing room to the curing and aging room. Large rounds are brined and allowed to dry and age on wire racks.

All cheese ends up in the storage room labelled with a hand-lettered Laurel Valley label featuring a sweet cow face. Some is packaged in bulk for resale to restaurants. Others find their way directly to customers at farmers markets and grocers.

Variety Notes

All Laurel Valley cheeses are raw and simple to allow the flavor of the full fat grass-fed milk to shine through. These are true farmstead cheeses.

Laurel Valley makes several flavors of cheese curds. Fresh cheese curds are a rare treat; Laurel Valley's are squidgy, salty, super little bites. Enjoy curds as a snack, salad topping, or part of my favorite Canadian speciality, poutine.

Cloverton is a soft farmstead cheese that has a texture similar to chevre. It is creamy, slightly tangy, and luxuriously smooth. Cloverton is a blank slate for making into desserts or stirring into savory sauces. Laurel Valley makes Cloverton into several seasoned cheeses including Aphrocheesiac, a small loaf of cheese covered in Mediterranean spices.

Recently, Jeni's Ice Creams created a roasted cherry cheesecake parfait with Laurel Valley Cloverton sauce. I felt obligated to try it for the sake of this review and was not disappointed. The flavors are balanced and the parfait is so rich one might need not eat for days after.

Lil's favorite Laurel Valley cheese is the Havarti. It is mild flavored with tiny holes typical of the variety. The semi-soft texture makes it a nice contrast to more aged cheeses on a cheese plate.

Cheddar, Jersey Drover, and Galaswiss are all rich and creamy versions of the standard recipe. Laurel Valley's Country Jack is unique in that it's medium heat comes from local farm peppers.

Up Next for Laurel Valley

Thanks to growing demand for local milk products, Laurel Valley intends to expand their herd and make cheese more often in 2012. Celeste is experimenting with new styles of cheese and new flavorings for the Cloverton and cheese curds. Follow Laurel Valley on Facebook for all the latest news.

Find Laurel Valley cheese in central Ohio at the Clintonville Community Market, Weiland's, The Hills, and Celebrate Local.

Disclosure: Celeste generously fed Lil and I samples of cheese when I visited the farm. I was not compensated for this review and opinions remain my own.

Kokoborrego Sheep's Milk Cheese Company {Farm Tour}

On a crisp day last month, I visited Kokoborrego Cheese Company at the Sippel Family Farm with friends Bethia Woolf of Columbus Food Adventures and Faith Durand of The Kitchn. We took the hour-long drive north of Columbus to discover more about Ohio's first sheep's milk creamery.

Why Cheese?

After many years running the popular Sippel Family Farm vegetable CSA, Lisa and Ben Sippel searched for an additional, less seasonal, artisanal product. At the same time, Lisa's brother Ben Baldwin wanted to move out of the corporate restaurant management game. They found their calling to make cheese together at a workshop by Peter Dixon, a Vermont-based food educator.

The Sippels established a flock of East Fresian cross sheep in autumn 2010 and began their creamery in February 2011.

Ben Baldwin, primary cheesemaker, explained that "sheep's milk more naturally wants to be a cheese", which is why they turned to establishing a flock of sheep in addition to making cheese from a nearby family farm's cow milk. Besides, no one else in Ohio is making sheep's cheese and Lisa saw a market niche.

The name Kokoborrego comes from the Kokosing river headwaters near the farm and the Spanish word for sheep. Cheese variety names also reflect central Ohio terroir; Headwaters, Moraine, Whetstone, and Owl Creek all refer to local land and water features.

How the Cheese is Made

Ewes give milk twice daily in their 180-240 day lactation season from approximately March to September. At peak lactation, the Sippels get one gallon of milk per sheep per day. Ben Sippel is the primary milker. Ben also manages the grazing land for the ewes who eat local hay in the barn and spelt in the milking parlor.

With a heard of thirty five, Ben Baldwin makes small batches of cheese by hand three days a week.

The process begins when a culture is added to the raw milk and left to work its magic for one hour. During this time the culture multiplies and changes the flavor of the milk while dropping acidity. Lower acid milk has higher yield but if acidity dips too low, the flavor is off putting.

When pH reaches the cheese-maker's desired level, Ben gently stirs in rennet. Rennet is a naturally occurring enzyme that flocculates or separates solids from liquids in the milk.

After thirty minutes or so, the milk has flocculated and it's time to cut curds. When curds are fully developed, Ben stirs the cheese for approximately thirty minutes to develop texture.

Next Ben drains the whey and forms cheese into molds. He presses the molds in the devise pictured above to further release liquid. After a few hours in the molds, the cheese is released and aged for up to six months in a climate controlled room.

Future at Kokoborrego

The Sippels are concerned with making their farm a sustainable system and providing unique high quality products to the market. They hope to double the size of their sheep flock and make cheese more frequently in the next year.

They are adding pigs to the farm. Pigs will eat the whey (which is now poured on compost heaps) and eventually be processed and sold as artisanal pork.

While the current Kokoborrego cheese lineup is very successful, the cheesemakers are experimenting with Parmesan, Manchego and feta style cheese. A small supply of brie sold out in short time this summer.

Food lovers in Columbus can find Kokoborrego at several grocers and restaurants. Distributors in Cleveland and Chicago make the cheese available beyond central Ohio.

Bethia details more about the cheese styles and where to find them in her article Kokoborrego Cheese Company on Columbus Food Adventures.

Have you tried Ohio's first sheep's milk cheese?

Beer Cheese Fondue Dip

I mentioned making beer cheese dip for a Superbowl party a few weeks ago and Kellie asked for the recipe. Ask and ye shall receive, readers! albeit on a delayed schedule... Alex made this dip from scratch. It follows the typical fondue method: dust grated cheese with flour and mustard, warm a liquid with spices, and gently stir the cheese into the liquid. Pour into a fondue pot or very warm dish.

We served the dip for the Superbowl in a warm dish with homemade soft pretzels and vegetable crudités. The leftovers rewarmed easily a few days later for a snack with pumpernickel toast sticks.

[print_this]

Alex's Beer Cheese Fondue Dip

15 minutes preparation time, 8-12 servings

1/2 pound grated sharp or medium cheddar 1/4 pound cubed velveeta or grated mild cheddar 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper 2 tablespoon flour 1 teaspoon mustard powder or 2 tsp wet mustard 1 teaspoon worchestershire sauce 1 bottle beer - a few chugs (10 ounces), make it a beer you like as the flavor will be reflected in the final product salt to taste (don't overdo as cheese is salted)

1. Toss grated cheddar(s) with flour, pepper and mustard if dry. 2. Heat beer in a heavy bottomed pot on stove to a simmer. Turn heat to low. 3. Mix handfuls of cheddar into beer while continuously gently stirring with a spoon. 4. When cheddar has incorporated, add Worcestershire sauce and mustard (if wet). 5. Add velveeta chunks a few at a time and stir to incorporate, if using. 6. Add salt to taste but be careful not to over season.

Notes - Cheese amounts can be adjusted to make the sauce thicker or thinner as desired.  Pepper, mustard, and Worcestershire can be adjusted or omitted to taste. Be sure to stir continuously but gently on low heat or the sauce may break. [/print_this] Added to Hearth and Soul Volume 36