Paneer – Indian Cheese

Paneer is a homemade Indian cheese which has many applications from side dishes to chat to sweets. Paneer by itself has lot of taste and flavor of milk. Paneer can be made in advance and stored in refrigerator for around 3 –4 days. Although fresh paneer tastes best, stored paneer is close and much better than store bought ones. It is advisable to store paneer in submerged in water and change the water every day. This will give a better shelf life. Paneer can be made very quickly and takes less than 90 minutes from start to finish being ready. 1 liter 2% milk yielded around 160 grams of paneer. You can use lemon juice, vinegar or citric acid to break the milk. But when curd or whey is used, you get the maximum quantity of paneer. You could also add spices to the paneer while curdling and you get the spiced paneer. Once I have added Red chili flakes and the paneer was so cute with the little red dots from the flakes.

Hung Curd

A lot of recipes call for Hung curd. What is hung curd and can it be made at home? There are products called Set curd which some people told me that it is hung curd available readily. Hung Curd can also be used in the place of cream cheese.
Preparation of hung curd requires about 2 to 3 hours of time only and most of the time is waiting time.

Ingredients
Curd - 4 cups

Method
Setup of the strainer should be like this - have a strainer over a vessel. Put double layered cheese cloth / muslin cloth / some thin cloth with very small holes over the strainer.
Pour the curd on the strainer and allow it to drain
Tighten the cloth such that the initial whey water comes out quickly. Take care to not press it too hard. If you squeeze too hard, then you might squeeze out the curd.
Allow it to rest in the fridge with the entire setup for around 2 hours.
Hung Curd is ready – isn't that easy?

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Kitchen Basics–Vaazhaithandu

Vaazhaithandu (Banana Stem in English) is a very healthy and fiber rich food. But it comes with a few non co-operating things. Like the banana stem does not have a long shelf life, it becomes stained very quickly, it is very hard to chop, the knife, utensils, hands and linen may (will) discolor if it comes in contact with this.
Some solutions that work for me for the above are:
1. For better shelf life – store the banana stem wrapped in newspaper inside a plastic cover in the fridge. Also make sure you buy fresh banana stem. This will increase the shelf life little.
2. For discoloring after it is cut – store the chopped pieces in mor (2 table spoons curd + 1 cup water)

3. For staining – grease the palm, knife, cutting board with oil. Avoid contact of the linen with the banana stem
4. For ease of cutting – cut them into small rounds and remove extra threads like fiber with one hand as you go


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Kitchen Basics - Jaggery

Jaggery – a very common sweetener used in Indian household.
Most of the times we need jaggery in small pieces. But we buy jaggery in big pieces. I have tried many techniques to get the jaggery to small pieces. Some methods includes keeping it on the floor wrapped in paper and nailing it with heavy objects, powder in the mixer etc.
I have also heard that breaking jaggery with jaggery will break it faster..
What works best for me like a charm is
Take the jaggery and use a peeler and peel it. This way you get small and uniform pieces and does not take too much time. Vola!! it is easy and you do not need a steel arm to do it!!
Try this method and tell me if it works for you too..

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