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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