How to make Paneer?

Paneer /Cottage cheese as we know it back home is quite different from the cottage cheese that we get in the markets here. Paneer is usually made at home using curdled milk. But it is a very time consuming process (tho the result is awesome). But after my experiment with the cottage cheese found in US supermarkets, I resorted to buying the Nanak Brand frozen paneer for all my paneer receipes.
But I was looking out for some easy receipe to make Paneer at home.As usual,with a lot of free time on hand I was idly orkutting for some paneer receipes , when one of the receipes mentioned the usage of Ricotta Cheese as paneer substitute. I did my search on Wiki and found that this is not technically a cheese as its made from "whey". The recipe mentioned that all you needed to do was "Bake" the cheese in a pan for ~20 mins. Unfortunately, someone called or some form of distraction made me loose that receipe , and I couldnt really find that again. I forgot about that and continued with the Nanak Paneer. One day, I saw a tub of ricotta on sale. So I ended up buying that. Now I searched orkut but nothing fruitful,so I just decided to trust my memory. (what a bad idea !)
I churned the ricottta and add a pinch of salt and arranged it in a baking pan and put it in the oven. I heated the oven at 400F and I was checking it every 5 minutes. So after 20- 25 minutes the water from it was all boiled off and there was a firmer solid sitting there. Also the sides had started to turn brown so I took it off the oven. Let it cool for another 30mins and then forked out a piece of that to taste. Wow it was not exactly the firm paneer that we get usually , but it was similar in taste to the paneer , also it did not crumble. So I tried to use it . Well it had to be added at a very last stage while making the subji's as it melted the first time I used. I didnt dare fry that, but next time when I made Palak Paneer , I added it at the very last minute, just enough time before serving so that the paneer pieces absorb the spices and Voila !!! it turned out very good.
Well this is not a very authentic receipe, but an experimental one and saves lot of time. It does taste good too and if you are counting calories you can get the 2% less fat ricotta cheese and your low cal paneer is ready.
I have not tried using this paneer in making sweets, but will soon experiment that as well.
So now, instead of rambling further I will give you my method of making paneer at home.

Ingredients:
16oz ricotta cheese
Pinch of salt

Method:

• Pre heat the oven at 375F
• Take the cheese out in a mixing bowl or you can use the baking pan.
• Add 1/8th tbspn of salt (you can skip this if you like)
• Arrange the cheese in the baking pan in a layer about 1.5 inches thick.
• Now keep this pan in oven for 20 minutes.
• After 20 minutes, you will notice that water has been boiled off and only solids are left behind. (If this is not the case , you will need to keep it in the oven for another 3- 4 minutes.)
• When you see that the cheese is firm, shut off the oven and let the pan stay in for another 3-4 minutes inside. Dont keep for nore than 3 -4 minutes else it will start burning (Sides start turning brown.)
• Take it out of the oven and let it cool. Once cooled make cubes and store it in the fridge in an airtight container.
• Usually,I dont use the paneer on the same day as its cooked.

This paneer stays for almost a fortnight w/o any compromise on its taste. So you can enjoy it for quite some time. Do try and let me know if you like it. Thanks for stopping by.

Read more...

How to Make Ghee

After coming to US, I was missing quite a few things in terms of food.On the top of my list was home made ghee /Toop (Tup). My idea of comfort food is ghee rice / ghee khichadi which I was missing the most. I did manage to get the ghee for religious purposes and also ghee which can be used for Tadka etc. But I could not bring myself to eat the Amul Ghee with rice. So continued my cravings. I was waiting for someone to come from India and while doing so get some 2-3 kilo's of ghee for me, but alas no one was scheduled to make a trip. But one day while browsing orkut's Receipes' community, I saw a post which mentioned using unsalted butter to make the ghee. Unfortunately that post didnt mention anything about the procedure.

I had never noticed the unsalted butter sitting right next to the salted ones on the shelves before this day. I had never ever made Ghee back home , only watched Aai make it. But it had never registered in my mind. So after buying the butter, I pestered Aai over Gtalk and asked her 1000 questions about time, colors, how will I understand if its done. What will it look like etc etc .....
The only smart thing I did was to use only 2 sticks for the first time, that gave me the remaining two sticks to experiment. Since the very first time it did get a bit burnt.

However,now after a year I have a tried and tested receipe which I use almost every alternate month and make ghee at home.

After getting introduced to the blogging world, I did notice that many fellow bloggers use similar method to make ghee, however, I cant resist the urge to put up my receipe as well.
I use the 2 packs of Unsalted butter ,which is ~ 8 lbs and I get ~ 6 lbs of ghee. I have never measured, but this is the general calculation. You should always take 25% more butter than the ghee that you need.

Ingredients:

Unsalted butter sticks
A pinch of Salt

Method:
1. Place the butter sticks in a thick bottomed pan.
2.Before adding the butter , make sure that the pan is completely dry.
3.Place the pan on medium high heat till all the sticks get melted.
4. When the melted butter starts boiling, it will begin to be frothy and sputter a lot at first as the water boils off.
5.Continue boiling the butter uncovered.
6.As butter boils it will get separated in three layers.
a. Froth / Foam - which is the water forms the top layer.
b. Transparent Liquid - Which is the actual ghee is the middle layer
c. Milk Solids - This will settle down to bottom of the pan.
7.Slowly the liquid on top becomes more and more transparent. When the butter has a golden transparent color, there is very little foam left on the surface, and the solids have settled on the bottom.
8. At this stage, add the pinch of salt, keep it on very low heat and stir it continuously as it can burn very quickly. The salt will help the solids to settle down and also make the ghee to get danedaar (Kanidar in marathi).
9.When the solids on the bottom of the pan turn light brown and the liquid deepens to golden and turns translucent and fragrant, you can notice a nice aroma from the pan.
10. At this stage remove the pan from heat and transfer on a cold burner. If you keep it on the hot burner, the solids will burn off giving burnt taste to all the ghee.( This was my mistake :( )
11. Use a mesh strainer to strain off the solids. Store the ghee in a glass bottle, make sure its clean and dry before filling the ghee.
12. Now the milk solids that are left behind, you can add sugar /jaggery powder and eat it . It tastes real good. It is called as beri in marathi.

After removing the beri , you can use the utensil to make daal or add the daal to this utensil after making it. The taste is awesome.

Thanks for stopping by.

Read more...

Refreshing Panhe

Summer, Mangoes, Aamras and Panhe go hand in hand back home. Summer vacations will not be the same if you missed any of these. Coming to US last year I missed the scorching heat and the street filled with vendors selling Mangoes and also the vendors coming to sell mangoes by the Peti. In Mumbai and nearby suburbs , we could often hear these vendors shouting "Ambeyyyyyyssss yyyy" in the mornings and often in the still afternoons of April and May.
"Mangoes" held a very important place in the summer vacation lunches,dinners and mid day /evening snacks in various forms. For lunch /dinner you can have it as "Aamras" , while in the evening you can have a nice huge glass of Mango milkshake :) and these are just two forms :P
The raw mango also holds very special place in my mind for its tasty pickles (Lonchi) and most important Panhe. We were technically not supposed to disturb the pickles (but of course we ended up raiding the closet) which was made to last the entire year and tasted better when it would be marinated in the oil (Phodni) along with a special Masala which would usually be the secret ingredient.
But all households usually had this drink ready in concentrated form for the children and their friends or any guests who would stop by. This was the refreshing Panhe . It is made usually from a raw mango (Kairi). Well it was end of Summer here in US this year , when one day the guy at the Indian Grocery stores that I frequent told me that he had just received a consignment of raw mangoes from India (usually they get it from Mexico). That just tempted me to buy it and make nice refreshing Panhe . So not rambling on further let me get to the receipe for this nice drink.

Ingredients :

• Raw Mangoes (2-3 med sized, 1 Large)
• Sugar - (Approximation (1/2 - 1 Cup)
• Cardamom powder - 1 teaspoon
• Saffron - 2-3 strands
• Salt - To taste (Black Salt /Rock salt - Gives better taste)
• Water - to boil the mangoes
  
  Receipe:
  1. Boil the mango/mangoes in a pressure cooker for 2 whistles or outside in a thick bottomed pan till u can see the mango get tender and skin getting peeled.
  2. Let it cool . Peel the skin when cooled , de-seed it and remove the pulp.
  3.Mash the pulp and add sugar (now be sure to taste the pulp so that you can understand how much sugar u need to add depending on the sourness of the raw mango and your taste). You can also blend it to a smooth consistency in a blender.
  4. It should be sweet and tangy to taste.
  5.In a thick bottomed pan , heat the mixture over medium heat. Let bubbles rise on top. Reduce the heat and simmer for 5 minutes.
  6. Remove from heat when it thickens a little bit and let cool.
  7.Add the cardamom Powder , Saffron Strands and pinch of salt.
  8.When cool fill it in a clean and dry glass jar. It will stay atleast for a month in the refrigerator.
  9. While serving, add a desired amount of chilled water (Just to make it thin enough) and/or ice cubes depending on your choice.

Serve chilled and get refreshed in minutes or take a big glass and get ready to reminisce in the childhood memories :)
PS: Some people do add a bit of spice to this panha by adding a pinch of cumin powder to it. Also, this can be cooked using jaggery instead of sugar but I do prefer sugar !!!

Read more...

Kuch Meetha Ho Jaye !!!

This is my first attempt to blog about something that's been experimented in kitchen! Seeing a lot of blogs online which are an excellent display of the culinary skills of these fellow bloggers, I too was tempted to start my own blog. I have been cooking for quite sometime now, and hence I can at least dare to display my experiments in the Kitchen to the world.
There is a huge foodie blog roll which was my window to this amazing world of cooking! I will add these links with permission from them soon.
I have always been a big fan of this sweet which was made at my home primarily on the occasion of Dusshera. But now here I am in states, where there is festival every time you get together with friends and have pot luck / parties. So this weekend, when I had a few friends of my parents over here to visit us, I thought of making this sweet which is very easy (primary reason to make it), with a recipe that can't fail! And I was sure everyone would be happy to have this sweet as it's quite a rage back home.
I love both the thick and slightly less thick form of this fabulous sweet which is more popular in Maharashtra. Basundi as it is called in Marathi, the thicker version is called as Rabdi/Rabri and is more popular in the Northern states of India.
My mom makes it the hard way, and her recipe includes boiling milk on low heat for a long time , while continously stirring the milk. Milk is usually reduced by half or 1/3rd of the original quantity and then sugar as per liking is added. It is then garnished with crushed almonds, pistachios and cashews and charolya (I am still searching for the English name of this garnish). The main sweetness is derived from the boiling of milk and the cream that is formed as a result of this boiling is just divine!
But here in states we dont get the milk which can yeild same result and also I am a lazy bird who would want to have the same taste and but is not willing to invest so much time and energy for the same. So I found quite a few alternatives to this slow process.

Here goes my recipe:

Ingredients:

• Condensed Milk : 1 can (14 OZ)
• Evaporated Milk : 1 Can (14 OZ/16 OZ)
• Half and Half Milk :1 Can (14 OZ)
• Heavy Cream: 1 Pint. (~ 1/2 liter)(If you are counting calories and are willing to forego the taste, use the Light cream)
• Almonds and Pistachio's for Garnishing ( Ground/ cut depending on your choice)
• Saffron - 2-3 strands.

Procedure:

• Mix all the different milks in a thick bottomed pan, preferably use a non stick one so that the milk doesn't stick to the bottom and keep it on low heat for 20 - 25 minutes.
• Keep on stirring so that milk doesn't stick to the bottom and also so that these ingredients get mixed.
• After it starts to boil, reduce the heat and keep on stirring.
• When cream starts forming, add the Saffron Strands. Keep it on simmering heat for another 5 minutes and add the garnish (almonds /pistachio's, cashews depending on your taste).
• Now take it off the stove and let it stand for another hour or so, till it is at room temperature. Then keep it in the refridegerator to cool before serving.
• Don't chill it too much, just about cold to eat. It can be eaten hot/cold and tastes equally good.

This is a not very sweet version, as mostly all the sweet comes from the condensed milk and the natural sweetness of milk (enhanced due to boiling). So if you like yours sweet, add some amount of Sugar in it while boiling.

Please let me know if you enjoyed my version :)

Read more...