One day, a cursory glance through an issue of the New Yorker brought me to an article discussing a Californian sports bar that specialized in giving typical American comfort food staples an Indian flair. In this particular instance, the dish receiving that particular facelift was none other that an American staple: P-I-Z-Z-A. The article spoke about integrating a blend of toppings featuring a marinated paneer and hot chilis, and coming from a family that has always enjoyed the art of pizza making, ladling sauce atop the dough, distributing toppings and carefully placing it atop the stone whilst mommy surreptitiously looks over the process to make sure we don’t overfeed ourselves. Thanks mommy!
I immediately expressed the desire to prepare the paneer and got to work making a batch of it from scratch. Homemade paneer is probably the easiest cheese that one can prepare at home, and is definitely cheaper than purchasing some from a specialty market since all your really need is a quart of milk, six-ish tablespoons of white vinegar, and some salt. The real work is Dependent on one’s patience. Waiting for the milk to heat but not scald, waiting for the curds and the whey to emancipate, and waiting as the newly made dairy product attains hardness under the yoke of your weight of choosing. In my case, it’s a Dutch oven. And let me tell you, nothing ruins the patience game more that one’s worrywart father constantly saying “Hey focus on the milk its almost BURNING”, when in actuality it’s barely started bubbling at the top.
Now I want you to imagine how one would go about stirring this mixture once the vinegar has been added and the curds and whey begin to separate. None of the typical circular motions we’d all associate with stirring, no, instead you drag the spoon gently through the mixture in a motion similar to rowing a boat. You need to be gentle whilst the magic is happening, very gentle. To my credit, I gave the curds and whey ample time to divorce themselves before straining them in dishcloth-lined colander and letting the curds drain. Those curds were PERFECT. I mean, by the standards of someone who’s actually good at cooking they’d be sorta ok but to me they were perfect. After an hour-long stint under the Dutch oven, a perfect disk of homemade paneer had formed, and I felt good. At least, until I realized that I was to use this cheese in such a way that its structural integrity wasn’t really that important. If I had made this for something like Saag or Mattar Paneer, I’d be in 7th heaven by now, BUT NOOOOOOOOO, I just had to incorporate it in something that involved crumbling it up and spreading it atop a flat disk of dough, cheese, and tomato sauce. Really? The only time I do right by the cheese and it doesn’t even matter? What’s wrong with me. I jest of course. Partially. But it is still pretty frustrating.
After tossing the paneer in a homemade marinade and letting it rest for an hour or two, it’s pizza time. We came to decide on a mix of some classics, turkey pepperoni, sliced red peppers, yadda yadda, and our homemade paneer with thinly sliced red onions. The standard toppings sans red peppers would occupy one pie, whilst our little pet project would be sharing with the aforementioned peppers. Our typical practice of making pizza apparently didn’t mesh well with the paneer unfortunately. As while everything else had melted and homogenized perfectly on the pie after its time in the oven, the paneer had hardly melted, and the onions had just begun to burn. It was still a treat mind you, and the marinade gave our pizza that characteristic Indian hotness, but I do think we still have a long way to go when it comes to integrating foreign cuisine into our comfort food staples of choice.
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