Both cheeses are what is termed "fresh cheese", meaning they are made, then used immediately or soon afterward, instead of being set aside to cure. Both are made using milk and an acid, but no "coagulator", such as rennet. Both can crumble nicely. Both can be cut, if you want. And neither one melts when cooked.
A little more research confirmed it: a recipe for a basic queso fresco turned out to be exactly the same!
As the next bread recipe I want to try requires cheese, and as one commenter said they had the best results using queso fresco, I decided it was time to take pictures and post this adventure, as well, on my way toward the next bread.
Ingredients:
2 quarts milk (I've used whole milk before with good results. This time, I used 1 percent.)
1/4 cup lemon juice or white vinegar (I used lemon juice.)
salt to taste
Seriously!! That's all there is in it! (I figured for this, I did not need an ingredient picture.)
Now, down to business. First, put the milk in a heavy cooking pot and bring it gradually to a boil, stirring gradually at first and more consistently later on so the bottom doesn't burn.
This will be the one step in the entire process which has the risk of driving you insane. At least, it drives me insane . . . every single time. It could be that I'm heating it at too low a temperature, but I find it can take the better part of an hour for my milk to finally reach a boil. By the end, I find I've been standing over the pot, staring maniacally at the surface, willing bubbles to rise.
After the milk finally reaches a boil, stir in the 1/4 cup lemon juice. Keep stirring. After about 10-15 seconds, the milk solids will start to separate from the whey. Keep stirring until it appears to be completely separated.
Remove from heat and allow the "curds and whey" to sit for a few minutes.
Prepare a colander or strainer over a bowl. Cover it with several layers of cheesecloth. (I used four.) A single layer of muslin can be used, instead.
Pour the curds and whey into the cheesecloth. Pick up the four corners of the cheesecloth and tie the opposite ones together. Remove this from the bowl.
Don't throw away the whey! It's good for you and can be used in place of water in your bread recipes. (You can see I used it in my "normal bread" recipe when I wrote that one up.) Just store it in the refrigerator for a week or less until you are ready to use it.
Here's an overhead view of my cheesecloth hanging on the wooden spoon inside the 2-gallon beverage dispenser my husband picked up for me, which I never use because it's just too big to have taking up space on my counter . . . Makes a great place in which to drain paneer, though.
This is what you see after about 30 minutes. Most of the whey has drained out. (Isn't it amazing how little cheese actually comes out of a half gallon of milk?)
If you want a more firm cheese, you can take it off the cheesecloth at this point and knead in some flour. I haven't done this, but I do knead in a bit of salt for flavor. If you want to make your cheese herbed, you can add whatever you want here, as well.
Place the cheese back on the cheesecloth and shape into whatever general shape you want.
Fold the cheesecloth over the paneer neatly.
Place the paneer over something which will drain. (This is a storage container into which my husband drilled holes to use as a makeshift steamer in our rice cooker. The things we do, sometimes, to improvise . . . It photographs better than my other method of using my oversized steamer insert, placing an upside-down saucer beneath it to lift it from the plate.)
Add some weight on top of the paneer. (You don't really need 3 whole pounds, but that was the weight of the can my daughter grabbed when I asked her for a weight. I shrugged and figured it would do. It's powdered honey, by the way, in case you were wondering.)
Let the weight sit on the paneer for about 30 minutes. This time, I confess, it sat longer, because I had someplace I had to be . . .
And that's all there is to it! You can see from the edges that the texture is crumbly, but the area more toward the center is stuck together well. As it sat under the weight longer than I usually do, it is more dry than I usually make it, but that will be to my advantage, I think, for my planned bread recipe.
At this point, if you're ready to use it, you can crumble or cut it. If you want to store it, use a container with a lid, and add some water, according to the Show Me the Curry ladies. (I've never seen queso fresco stored that way, but it seems to work.) This is, incidentally, why I tend to form mine in a square, because it fits neatly into one of those cheap "entree-sized" food storage containers.
Now the challenge will be not eating it all before I try out the bread recipe I want to try . . . This is, after all, the cheese I spread on my Simple Wheat Crackers the night I was dying for crackers and cheese . . . So yummy . . .
Afterward:
Live and learn! One thing I did not understand when I posted this is that the homogenized milk purchased at the store does not make this as well as milk which has not been put through this process. As I did not have a source of raw cow's milk, I could only use the store-packaged, homogenized milk. Just recently, I tried this recipe using our own home-produced goat milk, and it came out much differently. The texture was smoother, the curds stuck together more completely (I could actually slice it better), and the flavor, of course, was richer. <shrug> Now I know.
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