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.
Learn to make Fresh Paneer
