Namaste

Namaste and a warm welcome to all.

As you can see my blog is about food and recipes. I love eating and trying out new recipes all the time.

Very often we mum's think of healthy and interesting food options that we can make for our kids especially when they are back from school knowing that their lunch boxes never come back home empty. Hence I always feel its important to give them a healthy and wholesome snack once they are home. When my kid comes home from school I always try and give him some source of carbohydrate combined with proteins along with this, a fruit and milk, or puddings made from milk. Kids normally can't eat too much at one time, so the portions can be small but giving them a little from each of these food group ensures a balanced meal.

I have some interesting ideas that I'd like to share with you all. You might find some of my recipes very basic but I am hoping that my blog is helpful not only for Indians but for people all around the world! Indian food is quite popular and enjoyed by most, so hopefully you can attempt recipes from here and make it yourself now, in your kitchen. Please do go through my recipes and give it a shot at trying them. Let me know how things turned out and if you enjoyed your experience of cooking.... Feel free to get in touch, share your experience, leave a comment or ask any questions you may have. Thank you for stopping by and taking a look! I do hope its helpful.

Happy cooking!

Monday 30 January 2012

Home Made Paneer.

INGREDIENTS:
1 Litre of full fat/full cream milk (you can use fresh milk or UHT milk).
Juice from 1 big lemon or 2 tbspn lemon juice.

METHOD:
Boil milk.


Once the milk boils, squeeze lemon juice into it.


You will see that the milk starts to curdle. Stir and allow to boil on a medium or low flame.


Continue to boil (for approximately 8-10 minutes, stirring in between occasionally) till you see the liquid part has become clear but it may have a very slight pale yellow color.


Switch off the gas. You need to strain the cottage cheese using a strainer.


Keep a cotton handkerchief on the strainer and pour the curdled milk in it, rinsing the container in which you boiled milk with some water and pour this water so you take all the cheese that might be stuck on the utensil. Do the straining part in the wash basin or make sure you put an empty container below the strainer.


Wash the cottage cheese below running tap water. Be careful that the water should not be overflowing or else the cheese will fall out of the strainer.


After you have washed the cheese well, squeeze out the extra water as shown:


Squeeze out as much water as you can from the cheese. Your cottage cheese is ready. You can use this cheese to make dishes that will use scrambled cottage cheese as shown:


OR

If you want to make cottage cheese cubes you need to process it further.

Squeeze all the water out.


Flatten the handkerchief between your palms.


Keep it on a flat plate now.


Put another flat plate on it, basically sandwich it between 2 flat plates.


Keep something heavy on it, so the heavy weight is evenly spread on the cheese. I have placed a pressure cooker filled with water. Leave this undisturbed for about 1-2 hours.


Take the weight and the plates off. Open the handkerchief. The cheese is now 1 big circular piece.


Gently take off the handkerchief.


You can cut it into small squares now (as the cheese will be firm now).


Use the cottage cheese fresh or you can even pack it in a zip lock, freeze it and use later.


OR

You can always buy the ready pack available in most Indian stores and some super markets should have them as well. The brand names that Indian stores mostly have is Amul paneer and Kohinoor Paneer.




NUTRITIP:
Home made paneer is a good source of Protein, Vitamin B12, Potassium and Selenium, and a very good source of Vitamin D, Riboflavin, Calcium and Phosphorus.


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