Saturday, August 5, 2017

FOOD SPECIAL.... Say Cheese, the Indian Whey

Say Cheese, the Indian Whey


Cheese is not just Gouda and Parmesan. Indigenous cheeses like chhurpi, kalari, topli-nu-paneer and Bandel have unique tastes and tales to tell
There is a lovely musical tradition among the Brokpa -the pastoral community be longing to the Monpa tribe in Arunachal Pradesh -centred around the churning of the yak milk to yield butter and cheese.
According to a paper in the Indian Journal of Traditional Knowledge, as members of a household gather around the zopu, or cylindrical milk churner, pulling and pushing it for nearly a thousand times, they sing special churning songs. The rhythm and cadence of the song match the action being carried out. One can recognise which stage the churning is at by the beat of the song. Once the butter is taken out, the Brokpa use the remainder milk to make a wet cheese called chhurpi. There are countless such anecdotes around indigenous cheeses like kalari, topli-nu-paneer, Bandel and, of course, the ubiquitous paneer.

Many believe the Europeans introduced India to cheese-making traditions.But physicist-turned cheese maker Aditya Raghavan says cheese making has existed in India for a few millennia.“Even paneer can be traced back to the cheeses made in northwest India, using a mixture of milk and yoghurt. Texts from the Kushan period (1st century AD) talk about warriors being fed the thickened portion of this milk-yoghurt mixture, while the thinner liquid or whey, was distributed among the commoners,“ he says. The tradition probably started with dairy herders as they tried techniques to preserve excess milk.


Kashmir's Kalari

At a time when the finest Gouda, bocconcini and ricotta are available in the country, why go down the indigenous cheese trail?
“The process of making and preserving these whether it is the salting and smoking of the Bandel or the drying out of the chhurpi, so that it lasts a couple of years -tells us about preservation without electricity. It also offers insights into livestock traditions, the soil, the region and its history,“ says Mumbaibased Mansi Jasani, founder of the Cheese Collective, which curates cheese from across India. One of the popular indigenous cheeses is the kalari, traditionally made in the mountainous vistas of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh. According to Raghavan, this is made by Muslim pastoralists and uses a mixture of fresh milk and buttermilk, along with a natural, plant-based coagulant, which helps in the formation of cheese curds. This is closer to a western, rennet-based cheese process. The masses of curd are heated in an elaborate contraption till they are slightly molten; they, then, come together to form a smooth mass of hot cheese. Chef Prateek Sadhu of Mumbai's Masque restaurant hails from Kashmir and has fond memories of kalari being made by his mother. He loves how each of the three regions has its own version of this versatile cheese. “In Jammu, it is made with buffalo milk; in Srinagar with cow milk; and in Ladakh with yak milk.“

My quest to know more about kalari leads me to Himalayan Cheese in Pahalgam where Dutchman Chris Zandee works with local pastoralists to make this cheese, besides the Gouda and Cheddar.He tells me about the difference between the Udhampur kalari, which is like a hard ball, and the Kashmiri kalari, which is like a chapati. The latter is more labour-intensive and refined. “In Kashmir, they process it further by stretching it. This is then made into a chapati-like shape, nearly quarter to half-inch thick and eight inches wide,“ he says. In both places, the cheese is then put in the colder areas of the house. The dry climate air-dries it naturally. In Udhampur, a crust forms on the outside and the inside remains moist for a longer time, while the Kashmiri kalari dries faster because of the thinner shape. “However, when the kalari is packed soon after it is made, it will stay moist -like the mozzarella,“ he says.

There has been a steady growth in the demand for kalari from across India, with the Himalayan Cheese selling its products online and mostly to the superstore Foodhall in Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru.

Kalari can be consumed in a myriad of ways -stuffed in a parantha, fried and eaten with a chutney or stir-fried with tomatoes. “It is also safe to eat it raw, as it gets pasteurised during the stretching process,“ says Zandee. At home, he cuts the kalari into slabs and mixes them with salad.

The region-specific variations are not limited to kalari, but can be seen in chhurpi as well -versions of which can be found in Ladakh, Nepal, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh.

This traditional hard cheese is made either with yak or cow milk and is extremely chewy.In Arunachal, only the Monpa make it, using yak milk. “During summer, herders migrate to higher pastures. Most milk products such as mar (butter) and chhurpi are made there,“ says Joken Bam, scientist at the National Research Centre on Yak, Dirang, Arunachal Pradesh, where she focuses on milk products. She describes the chhurpi-making process in detail: the milk is heated till lukewarm, after which it is covered with a cloth and kept aside. When it has naturally curdled, cold milk is added and churned in the zopu. Once the butter has been taken out, the buttermilk is heated slowly.The whey is gently removed. The chhurpi is collected and drained further by placing it in a bamboo strainer. “If it needs to be stored for a longer time, it can be matured in calfskin bags called churtang,“ she says.

This hard chhurpi is chewed on endlessly by herders as they tackle the treacherous terrains. But not many are aware that there is a softer version too, made of the milk of yak or mixed-breed varieties as found in the Spiti valley, or cow milk, where the curds are not pressed vigorously into a firm solid and the cheese is not dry-aged. Raghavan came across this version at the Daragaon Village Retreat, where his hostess Radha Gurung made young chhurpi to be consumed fresh. “Stored in a cool place, it has a two-week shelf life. It is soft, crumbly and bears an enjoyable tangy bite,“ wrote Raghavan in a recent article.

Charmaine O'Brien makes a detailed mention of both varietals in The Penguin Food Guide to India. She writes that the hard chhurpi is used to add flavour to cooked dishes (not unlike Parmesan in the way it tastes and is used). The soft one “is cooked with greens and eaten like a condiment with meals as it has a mild tangy flavour. The Sikkimese cooks add soft chhurpi to soup or cook it with fiddlehead fern,“ she writes.


Cheese in a Basket

The European influences on Indian cheese making resulted in iconic varieties such as the Bandel and started the practice of maturing cheeses. “What the Portuguese notably did was make chhana in Bengal by breaking milk with vinegar or lemon juice. This led to the independent co-evolution of chhana and milk-based desserts in Bengal,“ says Raghavan. It is also in the erstwhile Dutch colony of Surat that Surati paneer came about.“The exact origin of this cheese is not known.Incidentally, the topli-nu-paneer is identical in production to the queijo fresco, made using a thistle rennet even today in Portugal.“

This delicate cheese is an integral part of Parsi weddings and special occasions. Anahita Dhondy, chef manager, SodaBottleOpenerWala, came across the old way of making the topli-nu-paneer in Parsi homes in Navsari and Udvada in Gujarat. “In the olden days, chicken gizzards were used as rennet. The curdled milk was then put in a bartan and allowed to cool down, where it set like a dahi. This was then scooped out and put in a cane basket, or topli, from which it derives its name,“ she says. “The number of producers has gone down in Udvada and Navsari. It is still made at home, not commercially, by the likes of Delna Camboly, who stay in the Dadar Parsi Colony, Mumbai, and supply it to families there.“ This cheese -which is thick on the outside and has a melt-in-the-mouth texture on the inside -is usually consumed raw, without embellishments. “I also put a salad bed underneath it,“ says Dhondy.

Then there is the Bandel, which again can be attributed to the Portuguese, who brought the art of cheese making to Bengal. According to Tanushree Bhowmik, a Delhi-based development professional who documents and revives old recipes through the pop-up Fork Tales, Bandel, located 50 km from Kolkata, became a Portuguese stronghold in 1599 when a church was constructed there. Although the Portuguese failed to consolidate their hold over Bengal, they left their traces behind in the Bandel cheese. “Originally it was made by the Mog or Burmese cooks under Portuguese supervision,“ says Bhowmik. Today, the production has moved out of Bandel to a handful of sites in the districts of Hooghly and Bankura, and is retailed out of a couple of shops in New Market, Kolkata. The cheese, made of cow milk, is soft and crumbly like feta when made fresh. The matured variety, with a brownish crust and an acrid bite, is salty and a special favourite as it adds a dimension of smokiness to the food. “It goes well with a crisp white wine,“ she says.

When we have a bouquet of indigenous cheeses, why are we clutching on to paneer?
Raghavan says buttermilk cheeses have a tangy bite, thanks to lactic acid bacteria, but lack the richness of full-fat cheese like paneer.

However, these salty, smoky, versatile, delectable cheeses are inching their way into contemporary dining space. At Masque, Sadhu pairs kalari with the mouth-puckering sea buckthorn, indigenous to Ladakh. “The idea was to recreate at the restaurant my childhood memories and this seemed a perfect fit. Just like you pair cheese and fruit, I wanted to pair kalari with a regional berry, and that's how sea buckthorn got incorporated,“ says Sadhu, who will soon be heading to Ladakh to get a fresh batch of the berry. Not many know that you can dehydrate the kalari and make a salt out of it. Using this technique, Sadhu makes a tapioca crisp with aged kalari salt.

At Toast & Tonic in Mumbai and Bengaluru, Bandel has been incorporated in diverse ways. So you can savour smoked Bandel cream cheese with a green mustard spread, soft eggs and Andouille sausage on sourdough toast. It is also featured in a dish of udon, house-cured chorizo and clams with ham. Chef Sabyasachi Gorai, who heads Lavaash by Saby in Delhi, gravitated towards this cheese when he was working on revivalist cuisine for the restaurant. Bandel, with its colonial origins, was a perfect fit. “Maturing and ripening of cheese didn't happen till the first Europeans landed in India. Bandel is unique as it is one of the oldest surviving styles of matured cheese in the country. I use it in salads, toasts, Armenian pizza and a cheese platter as well,“ he says. One can purchase Bandel from the Cheese Collective. “We are nearly done with our Cheese Room in Lonavala, and postDiwali, one will be able to get a lot more indigenous cheeses there,“ says Jasani.

Raghavan also mentions The Farm in Chennai which makes chhurpi, as part of its range of 10 different cheeses, following the traditional practices in the Himalayas and serves it in the Chhurpi-Dalle cheese toast, using dalle chillies straight from Sikkim. “No other restaurant in India has this kind of a hat-tilt to our cheese traditions,“ he says.There are a couple of reasons why these cheeses haven't gone mainstream. The toplinu-paneer is still not produced on a mass scale to be part of a restaurant menu. “Cold chains are not up to the mark, so some of these cheeses do not travel well,“ says Jasani. However, in their own small individual ways, producers such as the Himalayan Cheese and The Farm are trying to further the reach of these cheeses across India.

Jul 30 2017 : The Economic Times (Mumbai)
Avantika Bhuyan



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