Over on the (now defunct) sausage-making forum, someone asked for suggestions for a cheese-related activity to do with a group of school kids that wouldn’t break the bank. I immediately thought of paneer, an Indian vegetarian cheese, also known in Mexico as queso blanco. It’s like the cheese my granny made out of soured milk!

I’d only ever made it from non-homogenised milk, but nothing ventured, nothing gained: the investment of a whole £1 got me 2 litres of the local supermarket’s best full-fat homogenised milk.

To make the cheese is simplicity itself: put the milk into a pan and bring it to the boil stirring regularly so that the milk doesn’t stick to the bottom. Just before it boils (or at least when it’s over 80°C) add a couple of lemon’s worth of lemon juice or about the same amount of white vinegar. Give it a quick stir and then leave it for a couple of minutes, or so. The milk should have split into white curds and a watery light-green/yellow/clear whey – if it hasn’t, boil it back up and add some more lemon or vinegar. Pour the whole lot into a cloth-lined colander, rinse under cold water to cool, then leave to drain.

That’s basically it – you can go on to wrap the cheese up and press it (I did, under a stone mortar), you can add salt, herbs, spices etc to it, or you can even use it for sweet puddings or have it dribbled with honey.

If you press it for a couple of hours or so, you can cube it or mould it into balls. Then, unlike most other cheeses, it’ll fry without melting; it’s great in mattar paneer or pakoras.

Originally posted in May 2012