How to make Paneer at home | Keto Essentials | Headbanger's Kitchen

Horns up and welcome to a brand new episodeof Headbanger's Kitchen: Keto Essentials, the segment where I show you how to make essentialitems that we use in Keto cooking.

And today we're going to be making deliciouspaneer at home.

Yup, that's the Indian cottage cheese, you'veseen me make so many recipes with paneer and finally I'm going to show you how to makeit at home and it's really simple, really easy and you may never go back to eating outsidepaneer again.

So anyway, enough jibber jabber, let's goand make that delicious paneer! So to make the paneer, we're going to needone litre of whole milk.

It has to be full fat, non UHT whole milk.

If you can get raw milk, nothing like it.

Ideally you want to avoid the tetrapak milkbecause the milk proteins are damaged in that and will not curdle as effectively, but ifyou get nothing else you can use that, it will still work but it will just not be thatdelicious.

To the whole milk add 200 ml of heavy creamand this is mainly to increase the fat content of the milk for a richer paneer.

Place the milk on the stove and bring to aboil.

Make sure you're stirring occasionally to ensurethe milk doesn’t scorch on the bottom.

As soon as the milk starts boiling, turn offthe heat and add in lime juice or vinegar to it.

You're adding about two tbsp of lime juiceor vinegar.

Now you can use lemon juice, if you don'thave lime but you'll need to use about double the quantity at least and the reason beingthat lime juice is more acidic than lemon juice.

Once you add the lime juice or the vinegar,at this point, it should begin curdling.

Stir it gently, you don’t want the curdsto break up too much.

Now you're going to let the milk sit for about15 minutes and let curds and whey separate completely, so just leave it, don't touchit, don't do anything to it After about 15 minutes you should see theyellowish whey separate from the cheese-like curds.

Now, at this point, the milk hasn't curdledproperly, you can add more vinegar or lime juice or lemon juice to it and stir it andleave it aside for a few more minutes.

Now we're going to lay a cheesecloth on acolander.

I’m using a steamer though, because I didn'thave a colander.

Place the colander in a deep-ish saucepanto catch the whey.

Pour the entire thing into that colander andcheesecloth.

Now we have to wash the curds with some coldwater to stop them from cooking further and to remove the taste of the lime/vinegar thatyou have used.

Once the water has drained, you’ll be leftwith crumbly cheese curds.

Now if you're going to make something likepaneer bhurji you can actually use it right away, it's not an issue, but if you want thosenice, firm squares of paneer, we need to do a little bit more work.

Now just fold over the cheesecloth and placea heavy weight on it, like this saucepan, filled with water.

And just leave it for about 45 minutes, till allthe whey has gone down.

After about 45 minutes to an hour we're goingto open it up – Ooh yeah, that paneer looks good.

Deelicious! You can use this immediately or you can leaveit in the refrigerator and let it firm up a bit and then fry it and use it in graviesor whatever you like.

We're just gonna cut it now into cube sizedpieces and that's it.

Your paneer is ready to use.

So that paneer, that looks so delicious.

I fried up some of that just with a littlebit of Cajun seasoning – you can see this lovely golden crust on it and I'm going totry it now and tell you how it is.

Oh it's so soft and creamy.

Oh! I kid you not, guys, this is as good, if notbetter than store bought stuff.

(Better!) My wife says "better" because she taught mehow to make it.

So trust me guys, this paneer is delicious,it's amazing and you can use it in so many recipes – you can make the palak paneer,you can make chilly paneer, you can make paneer tikka masala, you can make malai paneer, youcan make paneer tikka, I mean the possibilities are endless.

So anyway, I'm going to get back to enjoyingthese paneer pieces and I will see you guys on the next episode of Headbanger's Kitchen:Keto Essentials.

Till the next one, cheers and keep cooking.

Mmmm, soft.