My recipe has been perfected over the years to produce a soft and squidgy cheese that cubes and slices beautifully for curries and crumbles like a dream for paratha, kulcha, samosa and bhurji.

How to use Homemade Masala Paneer

You can of course, use it fresh, just as it is for a melt-in-the-mouth texture, or pan-fry it to create a crispy, golden crust. It’s also a delicious addition to Indo-Chinese favourites like Chilli Paneer and Paneer Manchurian.

Homemade Masala Paneer

How to curdle milk for Homemade Masala Paneer

My preference is to use lemon juice to curdle the milk. This can be either fresh or bottled lemon juice.

You can also use vinegar, citric acid, yoghurt or even leftover whey from a previous batch of paneer to curdle the milk. For 2.5L milk you’ll need the following quantities of each:

• 2 tbsp white vinegar mixed with 250ml water
• 1 tsp citric acid mixed with 250ml water
• 100g sour natural yoghurt whisked with 2 tbsp water
• 250ml sour whey

What other herbs and spices can I add to Masala Paneer?

This recipe is highly customisable and can be transformed with just a few changes to the herbs and spices used. Here are some of my favourite Paneer flavour infusions:

• My original Masala Paneer: Ground black pepper, ginger paste, chilli flakes, fresh coriander.
• Indo-Chinese Masala Paneer: Chinese 5-spice, ginger paste, green chillies, chopped spring onion.
• Mediterranean Masala Paneer: Sliced olives, chopped sundried tomatoes, garlic paste, dried oregano, fresh basil.
• Jamaican Jerk Masala Paneer: Ground allspice, dried thyme, dried garlic powder, chopped scotch bonnet chilli.
• Tex-Mex: Smoked paprika, ground cumin, dried onion powder, chopped coriander.

How to make soft paneer

This is a super common question and one I’m asked often. The answer is simple: Use milk with ample fat content and curdle the milk slowly you don’t shock the curds into separating quickly. Dilute the acid with water to encourage a slow separation. The last thing to remember is to ensure you don’t press it too hard. A small amount of moisture in the cheese will keep it squidgy. Ultimately, try to introduce temperature changes gradually.

Simple changes you can make for softer paneer:

• Dilute the acid when using lemon, vinegar or citric acid to facilitate a gentle separation of curds and whey.
• Use high-fat milk (this will also improve yield)
• Rinse the cheese in warm water instead of cold

Paneer for sweet and savoury dishes

Follow my recipe to make perfect paneer, whatever your intended use for it may be. Whether you want to make cubes for Chilli Paneer and Paneer Tikka, crumble it for Paneer Kulcha or use the drained and kneaded chhena for making Rasmalai.

The Best Homemade Masala Paneer: Troubleshooting

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Homemade Masala Paneer

The Homemade Masala Paneer. Soft and squidgy homemade masala paneer for curries, paratha fillings, chilli paneer, samosas and more. This simple recipe includes tips for making fresh masala paneer that tastes like it just came from the dairywala.

Course Appetizer, Main Course

Cuisine Indian

Keyword cheese

Prep Time 50 minutes minutes

Cook Time 20 minutes minutes

Total Time 1 hour hour 10 minutes minutes

Servings 350 g

Author Sanjana

Equipment

• Large, heavy-based pan
• Muslin or cheesecloth
• Colander or sieve
• Large bowl

Ingredients

• 2.5 L full-fat milk at least 3% fat Note that ultra-filtered milk isn’t suitable for making cheese
• 100 ml lemon juice
• 250 ml water
• 1/4 tsp any flavourless oil to grease the base of the pan
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp freshly-ground black pepper
• 1/2 tsp chilli flakes
• 1/2 tsp grated ginger or ginger paste
• 1 tbsp freshly-chopped coriander

Instructions

• In a bowl or jug, mix together the lemon juice and water.
• Use a kitchen towel dipped in oil to grease the base of the pan. This will stop the milk from burning on the bottom.
• Pour the milk into the pan and heat over a medium flame. Don’t stir the milk too much as we don’t want to create too much froth. Don’t leave the milk unattended, it can boil over quite quickly. Once the milk comes to a boil, switch the heat off.
• Slowly add the lemon and water mixture and stir the milk very gently to disperse. Imagine gently drawing a figure of eight in the pan. If the milk isn’t curdling, add more of the lemon and water mixture until it does.
• You’ll know the paneer is ready when the curds look like little white clouds floating the a yellow/green-ish water (this is the whey).
• Line a colander or sieve with a clean muslin or cheesecloth. You can wet the cloth if isn’t sitting in the colander well. Place the colander over a large bowl to catch the drained whey.
• Pour the mixture into the colander and allow the whey to drain out.
• Next, transfer the bundle of drained curds (along with the muslin) into a bowl while you pour the whey into another bowl or simply swap it with another bowl.
• The curds now need to be washed to remove any excess acidic flavour. Pour plenty of warm water over the cheese and agitate with a spoon to wash away the sourness. I use around 1L water for this process.
• Once washed, dissolve the salt in another 500ml warm water and pour this over the curds to season it. Sprinkle over the black pepper, chilli flakes, ginger and coriander. Mix well.
• Wrap the muslin over the top of the curds, as flat as you can get it. Press gently with your hands to drain off excess water.
• Place a flat plate over the top and weigh the curds down with something heavy (like a few tins of beans, a mortar or books) to drain off remaining water and lightly set the paneer. The heavier the weight you apply, the firmer set your paneer will be. I like to apply a light weight at this point so that I can mould it properly later.
• After an hour, the paneer is ready to use. It may be slightly crumbly. If you prefer a firmer set for cubing and slicing, either set in the fridge overnight or do as I do and mould it in a dish, tin or bowl with more pressing.

Optional step for moulding the paneer:

• Transfer the lightly-set paneer to a small tin or ceramic/glass dish, about 12cm wide. Keep it in the muslin/cheesecloth for easier unmoulding later. Press the paneer in with the back of a spoon. It doesn’t matter of it breaks and crumbles as you’ll be pressing it again shortly. Wrap the paneer up with the muslin and apply more pressure with a plate and weight.
• Pop the whole thing, plate and weight included in the fridge overnight to set. The next day your block of fresh paneer will be ready to cube and slice for all your favourite paneer recipes.

Video

Notes

• My preference is to use lemon juice to curdle the milk. This can be either fresh or bottled lemon juice.
• You can also use vinegar, citric acid, yoghurt or even leftover whey from a previous batch of paneer to curdle the milk. For 2.5L milk you’ll need the following quantities of each:
  • 2 tbsp white vinegar mixed with 250ml water
  • 1 tsp citric acid mixed with 250ml water
  • 100g sour natural yoghurt whisked with 2 tbsp water
  • 250ml sour whey

Pin this recipe for later!

If you like this, you’ll love my recipe for Paneer Kulcha

The post Homemade Masala Paneer appeared first on Sanjana.Feasts.

It happens all the time and only sometimes are we fortunate enough to spot it. Last year a well-known vegan recipe brand which rose to fame and made fortunes through Facebook “hands and pans” videos lifted plagiarised a recipe from this blog, my blog, the one I’ve written and put my heart into for nine years. I didn’t pick up on it at first. It was sent to me privately by a reader and as soon as I saw the post, I spotted comments from my readers calling the brand out on their blatant dupe of my recipe. These comments received no responses and were later deleted by the brand, including a comment made by myself asking why they did not credit me for my work.

My work. My work. Yeah, I work seriously hard to create, test, style, photograph and write recipes for this blog. It consumes full weekends at a time per recipe and there are no monetary gains. Have you ever noticed that there aren’t any display ads on this website? I was five months pregnant when it happened and working full time in a job that required me to travel on trains for four hours a day. This was the last thing I needed. This blog has always been my outlet, my safe place you see. It’s brought me so much joy over the years.

I reached out to people on social media to get some advice and every one of them told me to do something about it. My whole life I’ve been the person that forgives, forgets and moves on. Apparently that was the wrong course of action this time. So I wrote to the brand directly. Here’s what I said:

Dear [Brand]

You probably know who I am and why I’m contacting you, given the rather embarrassing situation on your Facebook, Instagram and YouTube pages this week. As I mentioned in my posts, I am a food blogger who has been sharing recipes for almost 10 years. I blog alongside my full-time job and have never made a penny out of blogging. I somehow always thought money would suck the joy out of the blog I love and am so passionate about. So you can imagine that it came as a surprise when one of my readers contacted me on the evening of 2nd November 2017 to share a link to your Facebook page (of which I was already a fan as I once thought your content was original and creative). It was to your video for Tofu Tikka Masala. The similarities between that recipe and the one I published on my blog in January 2016 were uncanny, right down to the use of well, every ingredient. The formatting of the written recipe was also incredibly similar. Like it has been copied and pasted, with a tweak here or there to remove some of the ‘weirder’, perhaps less obtainable ingredients like kasoori methi – which I kindly mentioned was optional in my original recipe anyway. I do love a good cooking tip.

I like to think of myself as a fair person and I very much would have been happy for you to use the recipe for your video/social media, had you asked first. The most I would have asked for in return is a credit to my blog and perhaps a link. That really is all.

I hope that this experience was enough to encourage you to reflect and stop this from happening again. A lot of lesser-known bloggers do this as a hobby and devote real energy to doing a good job – and for nothing at all in return but the feeling of sharing an epic recipe with people who care enough to read and cook from their blogs. We don’t all have 1.4 million Facebook fans, 240K Instagram followers, book deals and branded content campaigns coming out of our ears. We do it because we love to cook and share recipes and food stories that are close to our hearts. Personally, I do it to honour my grandfathers – both were chefs in East Africa. One was a confectioner and the other a chef for a family who owned a sugar plantation. I never knew either of them but I know that they’d have taught me some brilliant stuff. I’d give anything for that chance. I’d probably be sharing gathia-making and jalebi-piping (they were experts at that) on my blog right now if I’d have had that opportunity. Anyway, I’d like to think you’re well aware of the time and effort it takes to conceive of, produce, photograph/film and write up a recipe. Please do think about these things before you decide to copy and take credit for someone else’s recipe and hard work for personal gains again.

It has also been brought to my attention that you have a book coming out with [publisher] in April. I believe it is due to be printed in the coming months. I hope you do reply to this message and as part of your response, I’d like to know if my recipe for Tofu Tikka Masala will be printed in your book? If so, I very much hope it will be attributed to me and my blog and that I will be appropriately compensated for my work.

I’d like to write more about this in the future and would like to give you the opportunity to provide a comment that I can reference and incorporate. I hope you will issue a response. Unfortunately after multiple attempts to contact you, the only response from you was to delete the content entirely, without offering a reply or an explanation.

Kind regards,
Sanjana
sanjanafeasts.co.uk

That was sent in November 2017. I did not receive a response.

I then contacted the publishing house they recently brought a vegan cookbook out with (April 2018). Despite chasing up my email on four separate occasions, the last time being in February 2018 (just before I had my baby – I was a bit busy after that you see), no response was received.

It did make me wonder whether my content, along with content that had been duplicated from other people’s blogs would be published in their book without credit. This includes potential recipes from other bloggers who did not know their recipes have been copied without prior consent. It’s incredibly disappointing to see cookbook authors like this do this kind of thing with other people’s work, especially when it’s to promote a cookbook they have benefitted hugely from, both on personal and professional levels.

Here is a link to the original recipe I wrote on this blog: https://staging.sanjanafeasts.co.uk/2016/01/vegan-tandoori-tofu-tikka-masala

Although the video posted by the brand has now been deleted, an aggregator of vegan video content on Instagram reposted the original video before it was taken down. If you look at both this recipe video and the recipe on my blog, you will see that they are the same in every way. https://www.instagram.com/p/Ba-TkRnjveu/

I am aware that IP around recipes is a tricky subject and there are multiple recipes out there with similar titles and ingredients but in this case, the similarities are overwhelmingly clear from the method, right down to the use of tofu puffs, brown sugar (not common in Indian cooking but a great substitute when jaggery is unavailable), fennel seeds and many more ingredients that were used/their quantities when you looked at the written recipe they shared (this has also now been deleted).

The book has had a brilliant reception in the media and on Amazon, it’s even called out as being “The Fastest-Selling Vegan Cookbook Ever!”

To summarise, don’t copy other people’s work without giving credit, hiding the evidence is usually an admission of guilt and goes hand-in-hand with a lack of accountability (I know because I’ve hidden dozens of chocolate bar wrappers in my time). I’m sure they teach you that this stuff is not okay way back in school, right?

The post Why It’s Never Okay to Lift Recipes from Food Bloggers (or Anywhere, Really) appeared first on Sanjana.Feasts.

To demonstrate how easy this is, I’ve pulled together a short video where you can see how it’s rolled and coiled for that awesome shape. As much as I love this, it wouldn’t be half as amazing to eat if it wasn’t for the epic Carrot and Cucumber Mustard Salad. It’s loaded with hot and sour flavours which cuts right through the richness of the pie.

I glazed these pies with a combination of melted butter and turmeric for as a cheeky replacement for egg wash. Nobody will ever know.

This is perfect for serving up when you have friends over for dinner, taking along to picnics and stowing away in the freezer prior to baking for a quick meal.

Watch the video, read the recipe, make it for your friends and family and let me know how it goes. I love seeing the pictures of what you create at home so keep ‘em coming. BTW, I get to say hello to you again today!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFRhzjynokI&feature=youtu.be

Palak Paneer Snails
Serves 6

Ingredients 

700g leaf spinach
250g paneer, crumbled into large pieces
250g ricotta
1 tbsp ground fennel seeds
1 tbsp sunflower oil
1 tbsp coarse semolina
1 medium red onion, chopped finely
1 tbsp grated ginger
4 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tbsp garam masala
4 green chillies, chopped
1 tsp cumin seeds
Salt to taste
16 sheets filo pastry (approx. 12″ x 22″)
200g butter, melted
Pinch or turmeric
Sesame and nigella seeds

For the Cucumber and Carrot Mustard Salad

2 large cucumbers
5 carrots
1 tbsp sunflower oil
1 tbsp mustard seeds
1 tbsp English mustard
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar (optional)
Juice 2 lemons
Fried green chillies (optional)

Method

1. To make the pies, heat the sunflower oil in a pan and add the cumin. Allow to sizzle before adding the red onions. Sauté for a moment and add the ginger, garlic, chillies, garam masala and salt. Cook for 5 minutes and set aside.

2. Place the spinach in a colander (you might have to do it in batches) and pour boiling water from the kettle on top. Rinse with cold water and squeeze out all the excess water. Repeat for all the spinach.

3. Pile the spinach into a large bowl, add the paneer, onion mixture, ground fennel seeds, semolina and ricotta. Combine thoroughly.

4. To assemble, place one sheet of filo pastry on a work surface. Brush it generously with butter before adding your next sheet. Repeat the layering process until you have 4 filo layers.

5. Along the longest edge of the pastry, make a line of filling. Roll it up as tightly as you can without breaking it. Roll it 1 ½ times over itself. If you have excess pastry, trim it with a pizza cutter.

6. Once you have a pastry snake, brush it with more butter, and then take one edge to start rolling it into a coil shape.

7. Take some additional butter and mix it with the turmeric. Brush this all over the top of the coil. Sprinkle with nigella and sesame seeds.

8. Repeat for the next three snails.

9. Place your four palak paneer snails onto a baking tray and wrap with cling film. Refrigerate for 30 minutes. Bake for 45 minutes at 160C.

To make the Cucumber and Carrot Mustard Salad

1. Make the salad a couple of hours before for best results. Chop one of the carrots with a crinkle cutter or slice them thinly. Using a peeler, ribbon the other cucumber all the way around. Don’t include too many of the seeds as they’ll make the salad watery. Save them for a snack later. Ribbon the carrots in the same ways as the cucumber.

2. To make the dressing, heat the oil in a saucepan and add the mustard seeds. Wait for the mustard seeds to pop and crackle, and then add the mustard, lemon juice, salt and the optional sugar. Mix this all together and then turn off the heat. Pour the dressing over the cucumber and carrot and mix together. Allow it to stand for around 30 minutes. Lots of water will come out of the salad. With clean hands, squeeze the salad removing excess water. You’ll be left with firm vegetables and slightly pickled flavour. So good.

Love Sanjana

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I have decided that the intial plan of selecting a winner from the three recipes that came top in the poll should be flushed down the loo. The entries were too good.

The top THREE (not two) contestants will ALL recieve prizes for the fantastic recipes they sent in. Of course the winner, Mr P of Delicious Delicious Delicious will be receiving the gorgeous candy shop charm bracelet and the TWO runners up; that is Sharmilee of Sharmi’s Passions and Mathea of Peas Love Carrots will be sent their mystery prizes. You think I’m going to ruin the element of surprise by telling you what the mystery prizes are? No chance. 

P.S. Muchos love to everyone who entered. You are superstars!

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Thank you to everyone who sent in their entries for the Wear Your Food competition. The standard of entries was sky-scraping and I had a hard time picking favourites…

So I didn’t pick a winner all by myself.

This is where I need your help; I need you to vote for your favourite recipe via the poll in the right-hand sidebar. As far as I’m aware, you can vote once a day but please steer clear of voting more than once per day. I want this to be fair for all of the entrants who worked so hard on their entries. So remember to appreciate the labour that went in to these entries, as cheating will NOT be tolerated. I will reserve final judgment on the winner. If I find any cheating has been going on (and I can) then that entrant will be disqualified. I’m saying this because it has happened elsewhere in the past. Not because I want to sound ghastly. The top 3 entries voted for via the poll will face a panel of very cultured judges (my friends- lol) who will pick a winner.

The runner-up (chosen by yours truly) will win the ‘mystery prize’. Exciting.

Anyway, enough of the boring stuff. Shall I show you what my lovely entrants have been cooking up…? Charm style.

First up we have Tasty Trix’s ‘Bon Voyage Martini’ based on the little blue cocktail charm. Isn’t it a beautiful colour?

Second is the wonderful Mr. P of Delicious Delicious Delicious, with his ‘Glittering Raspberry Kulfi’ based on the ice cream cone charm. Delicious, delicious, delicious indeed. Are those REAL Swarovski crystals or silver dragees?

Sadhana & Muskaan from A2Z Vegetarian Cuisine sent in a whopping FIVE entries. Yes. Five. They are: ‘Spinach Strawberry Peach Salad’, ‘Carrot / Gajar Halwa’, ‘Insanely Chocolaty Chew-able Sandwich Cookies’, Classic Carrot Raisin Salad Tossed with Honey & Sesame seeds’ and ‘Mediterranean Multi-grain Pinwheels’.

Kim from Jhovaan (Meal – In Konkani) sent in this super pink recipe for ‘Strawberry Yogurt Ice Cream’.

Sharmilee from Sharmis Passions took inspiration from the chocolate cake charm and created this ‘Eggless Chocolate Cake’.

The artistic Mae from Peas Love Carrots sent in some beautifully designed elegant ‘Teacup-inspired Petits-Fours’. See how she has copied the actual design from the teacup charm onto the cakes? Wowza.

Cooking Foodie sent in no less than four great entries. They are; ‘Flourless Chocolate Cake’, ‘Microwave Coffee with Cinnamon Whipped Cream’, ‘Irish Coffee’ and a ‘Mudslide’.

Nithu from Nithu’s Kitchen sent in this very sweet ‘Sweet Heart Sooji Halwa’ recipe.

Jhonny from Food… Thought For! Has sent in this sunny ‘Summery Somersault’ cocktail/mocktail.

Cool Lassi(e) from Pan Gravy Kadai Curry has sent in a colossal seven recipes; ‘Rainbow Cupcakes’, ‘Lemon N Ginger Infused Green Tea’, ‘Sweet Heart Crunchy Ravioli’, ‘Sweet Flaky Palmiers’, ‘Carrot Halwa’, ‘Pear Witch Project (Ghoulish Halloween Treats)’ and ‘Nutella Topped Nutty Mush’.

Due to the fact that these two entries just missed the deadline, I cannot enter their names into the poll. However, if you would like to cast votes for their entries then please leave a comment below stating so.

Swapna has sent in a recipe for ‘Gajar Halwa’

And finally, the lovely Rohini from Curries and Spices has sent in this very clever ‘Chegodi bracelet with Thatai hearts’

Charming, no?

The post We Wanna Wear Our Food! appeared first on Sanjana.Feasts.

Today I have just one word for you.

Cute.

I was out (ahem) shopping the other day and I wasn’t planning on buying anything. Honest. Yeah, I was window shopping. Then I came across this cuterriffic candy shop charm bracelet! I had to have it no matter what. In fact, I had to have two. Just to take them home and look at them. Forever. I may never wear it.

You want one?

Introducing the Wear Your Food Competition…

So I would love to just give one of these babies away, I really would. Although where’s the fun in that? So I ask a few little things from you wonderful, sweety charm bracelet deserving folks.

What do you have to do?
Pick your favourite candy charm (or charms) on the bracelet pictured above and create a single dish inspired by that charm (or charms). Sweet and simple, no? The winner will receive the candy shop charm bracelet and one runner up will receive a mystery prize. Yep. oUhhHhh.

I will post a round up of all the entries in the post that announces the winners.

What will you take your inspiration from?

Entrants…

1. If you aren’t already a follower please click ‘Follow’ on the left hand sidebar (cheeky me… Yup, that’s how I roll).

2. Please post your entry on your blog before the end date of the competition and state on the blog post that you are sending it to KO Rasoi’s ‘Wear Your Food’ competition. Archived entries are allowed as long as they are re-posted and it’s stated that you’re sending it in to this competition.

3. Non-bloggers can also enter by sending their recipes and pictures via e-mail.

4. Multiple entries are allowed.

5. Please add pictures to your recipe so that we can see how yummy and charm bracelet-inspired they are!

6. Please e-mail your entry/entries, along with your name, the name of your blog and a link to the post on your blog to: sanju_modha (at) hotmail (dot) co (dot) uk

7. Entries must be received by 30th March 2010 at 23:59 GMT. The winner will be announced soon after.

If you have any queries please don’t hesitate to ask me!

Go on. Wear your food!

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Thank you for all of your wonderful entries to win the old-fashioned chilli chopper. The standard of creative recipes was outstanding and I really do wish I could pick you all as winners! One recipe that really stood out to myself, my friends and my family (yes indeed, some of my nearest and dearest were picking their favourites!) was Butternut Squash Rasam by Priya from Priya’s Easy N Tasty Recipes. Congratulations Priya, we all fell in love with your fantastically unique and healthy rasam recipe! Priya, please e-mail me with the details of where to send your prize.

I’m so disappointed I couldn’t send you all prizes because I really loved all of your recipes and you’re all winners to me. I’d like to take this opportunity thank you all for entering my first competition with a very simple but handy prize. You are all stars in my eyes.

The post And the Winner is… appeared first on Sanjana.Feasts.

Walking from the dirty, musky underground car park into the piercing night air I feel an incredible sense of wonder about what the evening has to offer. Slipping through Nottingham’s maze-like side streets under a light, warm and steady attack of rain I know I’m going to see some wonderful things here; things which could only be pulled out of a fairytale and set before our hungry eyes. I marvel at the possibilities of whether or not the cobbled street I walk on was once roamed by Robin Hood and his Merry Men in the distant and hazy past. As we snake in and out of the winding roads and masses of people, my companion and I discuss the things that may be at the German market, for this is where we were going.

Before I can take in another breath of bitter English air my eyes are transfixed on the first stall.

I hope the next stalls will have more German and little less uhh… fruit kebab.

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If you feel as if I am overlooking a particular favourite of yours or if you are unsure of what to do with a particular ingredient please do not hesitate to contact me and let me know. I am sure the KO kitchen can conduct some creative experiments with your ingredients. If you require a recipe for a special occasion or just an everyday meal to suit your particular veggie or dietary needs either leave a comment or email me. I will try to get back to you with your recipe as soon as I can. I am a dreamer so please be patient with me.

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