Basic Recipe #3: Home made Paneer/Cottage Cheese

Cottage cheese/Paneer is a dish that is extensively used in north indian cooking. Everyone intending on experimenting with indian cooking should have a good recipe for cottage cheese.

While most people buy cottage cheese off the shelf, i feel that store bought cottage cheese cannot match the taste and texture of home made cottage cheese. The recipe of cottage cheese is similar to that of home made ricotta cheese, the difference being the texture. While cottage cheese is firmer, ricotta cheese has a fine moist texture.

Cottage Cheese/Paneer

Ingredients 

Milk, 1 litre

Sour curds, 1 cup

Juice from 1 lime

Method 

Boil the milk. Once it starts boiling, add the sour curds and lime juice. Stir till the cheese separates from the whey. Line a colander with a piece of muslin cloth. 

Drain the cottage cheese on the colander to remove the whey. Gather the edges of the cloth and fasten them into a knot and allow the whey to drain. Now place a heavy object over the  cottage cheese (this helps in draining the whey faster) for about ten minutes.

If the cheese is not for immediate consumption, transfer the cheese to an air tight container and refrigerate.

Note:

It is important to use the lime juice while separating the cheese from the whey, since it gives a soft texture to the cheese.

The whey water collected can be used to make the dough for indian breads (rotis, chappathis, puris, naan etc) and also to make fresh cottage cheese (by substituting curds and lime juice).

Andhra style Ginger Pickle

Last month i made a short trip to Bangalore with my family. I stayed with a family friend who is a lovely person and an amazing host. She made us a lovely spread of andhra food. Andhra cuisine, which is spicy and tangy, is known for its vast spread of chutneys, pickles and biriyani/pulao.
One of the dishes she served us was Ginger Pickle. It tasted awesome and i immediately took down the recipe for my blog. It is very simple to make and tastes amazing!!

Andhra Style Ginger Pickle
 

Ingredients 

Tamarind           -  50 gms

Jaggery            -  50 gms

Ginger             -  25 gms

Chilli powder      - 25 gms

Salt               - 25 gms

Oil                - 25 gms

Mustard seeds      - 1 tsp

Garlic pods        - 4-5

Method 

Clean the tamarind by removing the seeds, veins that run along the sides and any pieces of the shell that is stuck on to the tamarind. Wash this tamarind in water twice to remove any impurities(however do not squeeze the tamarind and extract the pulp). In a blender add the tamarind, jaggery, ginger, salt, chilli powder and oil. Blend well till it is a fine paste. In a small wok, add a tsp of oil and heat it. Now add the mustard seeds and once it pops add crushed gralic and fry till it is light brown. Take it off the stove. Wait for the oil to cool and then mix it with the ground paste. 

Your ginger pickle is now ready!! Serve it with rice, rotis or dosas...

Mango Cheesecake

The only thing I like about summer is mangoes. I am sure many would agree with me.  I have been waiting for quite sometime to lay my hands on Banganapalli mangoes (Mangoes from Banganapalli in Andhra Pradesh) to make mango cheesecake. 

Mango cheesecake is a dessert made with a biscuit base and rich flavored cream cheese topping. I got the recipe for this lovely dessert from Edible Garden but I have made a few changes to the way it is usually made. Usually graham crackers are used as the base for cheese cake. This can be substituted by digestive biscuits or anyother sweet biscuit. I have used marie biscuits for my recipe. I also substituted cream cheese with Strained Yogurt (Click on the link for the recipe) to make it a low fat dessert.

Mango Cheesecake

Ingredients

Mango Puree              -  1.5 cups

Strained Yogurt          - 125 grams
Cream                    - 85 grams (i used low fat cream)

Sugar                    - 3-4 tbspns

Gelatin                  - 1/2 tbspn

Digestive Biscuits       - 8-10

Unsalted butter          - 3 tbspns

 

Method

Crush the biscuits in a food processor. Rub melted butter into the biscuits till it is moist and crumbly. Grease a tray with butter and press the biscuit mixture onto the base of the tray. 

Beat the strained yogurt and sugar well. Add the cream and mix well. Make a puree of the mangoes. Add gelatin to warm water and stir till it dissolves. Add this to the mango puree.  Fold in the strained yogurt to the mango puree mixture. Pour this over the biscuit base and refrigerate for 3-4 hours. Spoon the mango coulis on top of the cheesecake and serve cold!

Note 

I added a third layer of mango glaze/mango coulis on top of the mango puree mixture. The mango coulis gave a nice tangy taste to the cheesecake. I got the recipe for the mango glaze from Divine Taste.

Mango Coulis 

Ingredients

Mango              -  1/2 cup (chopped/quartered)

Sugar              -  2 tbspns

Water              -  2 tbspns              

Lime juice         -  1 tbspn

Method 

Add the mangoes, sugar,water and the lime juice to a pan and cook it on low flame for approx 5-7 minutes till the mangoes start losing shape. Blend this mixture and its ready to serve/use.

Basic Recipe #2: Greek Yogurt/Strained Yogurt

Strained yogurt is the base for several great dishes. It is known under several names in different countries i.e. it is greek yogurt in greece; labni in the middle wast, laban in iraq; Mâst Chekide in Iran..and the list goes on. In some countries like greece its made with sheep's milk and with cow's milk in the others.
It is used to make dips, frozen yogurt, shreekhand among other items. Since i intend on covering some of these recipes in the coming days i thought i should cover this in the basic recipe series.
Strained yogurt is very easy to make. Yogurt is strained using a cloth to remove the whey thus giving the resulting strained yogurt a nice thick creamy texture.
The only hitch with making strained yogurt is that it takes a lot of milk to make about a cup of strained yogurt as opposed to regular unstrained yogurt.

Strained Yogurt

Ingredients

Milk      - 4 cups

Yogurt    - 3 tsps 

Method

Heat the milk till its luke warm. Mix the yogurt with the milk. Keep it overnight to set (about 8 hours). However, if you are staying in a hot place like i do (Chennai), you should be able to get it done sooner especially during summer (about 4 hours).
Take a large colander and line it with a muslin cloth or a clean cloth. Pour the homemade yogurt on the cloth and tie up the cloth. Place the colander on a vessel so that the whey can drip into the vessel. Refrigerate this for 3-4 hours (i kept it overnight) to allow all the whey to drip. The resultant mixture is the strained yogurt/greek yogurt which is thick and has a rich creamy flavour.