Paneer cheese source? substitute?

[Anonymous]

I want to cook palak paneer, but don't know where to buy paneer cheese. Where do you get it?
Alternately: The recipe is subtitled "Cottage Cheese in mildly spiced Spinach". When I eat palak paneer in restaurants, it doesn't look like any cottage cheese I've ever seen in a grocery store. Is there a good substitute in our local stores?

Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Paneer is a basic, homemade cheese. It takes perhaps an hour to create - it's just a gallon of whole milk and some white vinegar. You heat the milk to steaming, add the vinegar and stir. Watch the milk separate. Strain and shape the "cheese" on a plate, chill and cut. One hour. Google it.

[Anonymous]

Or get queso fresco in the cheese section of a Latin grocery store or Columbia Heights Giant

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Or get queso fresco in the cheese section of a Latin grocery store or Columbia Heights Giant

And giants in silver spring too.

[Anonymous]

Get in from an Indian grocer or at Lotte mart in the Indian fridge section.

[Anonymous]

Maybe just do an Aloo Saag (spinach and potatoes), unless you really want some sort of cheese?

[Anonymous]

Whole foods has it

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Whole foods has it

But it is outrageously expensive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Whole foods has it

But it is outrageously expensive.

...okay. The question was where to buy it, not how expensive it is.

[Anonymous]

Get thee to an Indian grocery store.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Paneer is a basic, homemade cheese. It takes perhaps an hour to create - it's just a gallon of whole milk and some white vinegar. You heat the milk to steaming, add the vinegar and stir. Watch the milk separate. Strain and shape the "cheese" on a plate, chill and cut. One hour. Google it.

Wow! We will do this tomorrow. Thanks so much.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Get thee to an Indian grocery store.

Can you suggest one in MoCo? Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Maybe just do an Aloo Saag (spinach and potatoes), unless you really want some sort of cheese?

Good suggestion, but we're making aloo gobi already so I wanted another dish, too.

[Anonymous]

I have made the homemade version and it is easy, but honestly I like the texture of the store-bought kind better for making palak paneer or mattar paneer. I go to the India A-1 Grocery on Glebe Rd in N. Arlington and buy like 10 bricks at a time and freeze them til I want to make some mattar paneer.

[Anonymous]

I actually use tofu cubes as a substitute. Texture and taste are the same.