Before I started to make cheese at home, I saw each type I’d ever tasted as distinct. They were all cheeses, just like snap beans, carrots, and cabbage are all vegetables, but they seemed as dissimilar.

I learned that many cheeses are far more closely related than I’d imagined. A small change in ingredient, time, or technique was enough to earn them a new name. Replace goat’s milk with cow’s milk, and chèvre becomes fromage blanc. Fresh neufchâtel resembles American cream cheese but if ripened develops the soft rind and earthier flavor intended by its French creators. Press farmer’s cheese, or my preferred Lemon Cheese variation, and you create paneer.

As I explain this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon, pressing freshly made farmer’s cheese instead of hanging it releases more whey, so it becomes firm enough to cube and fry like tofu. I substitute paneer into many recipes that call for bite-size morsels of chicken or other meat, because it doesn’t melt when heated. Toss it into Mixed Vegetable Stir-Fry, grill and stuff it into tacos, or use it more traditionally in tikka masala, the recipe I’ll share in next week’s column.

Paneer is just as delicious unheated. Swap it for feta for a milder salad, or drizzle it with warm jam or fruit syrup for a sweet treat.

Learn more about pressing cheese and get the complete recipe for Fresh Paneer in my column.

Make it, share it.
Tag @twiceastastyblog and #twiceastastyblog

Twice as Tasty

I’m featuring cheese-making workshops this month, in which you and your friends learn to make farmer’s cheese, yogurt, and paneer with my personal, hands-on help. Once you become comfortable with these techniques, other cheese types will seem far more approachable.

Some require additional tools and ingredients, but you have many options that only need an affordable shaping mold or a starter culture. Until I write more about my latest experiences in making cheese in my column, here are a few of my older cheese-making recipes on the blog. You can find more in the recipe index.

• Whole-Milk Ricotta
• Quick Homemade Mozzarella
• Dry-Salted Feta
• Homemade Fromage Blanc

Before you begin, I recommend reading my cheese-making primer here.

Want more Twice as Tasty recipes? Get my books! Click here to order a personally signed, packaged, and shipped copy of The Complete Guide to Pickling directly from me. I also share tasty ways to use pickles in The Pickled Picnic; it’s only available here.