Chaturika develops ready to cook hard paneer cheese

The Uva Wellassa University(UWU)is the first ever entrepreneurial university in Sri Lanka known as the centre of excellence for value addition, which fulfills the requirement of producing undergraduates with entrepreneurial skills much needed for the country. This is the third of a series of articles based on final year student research reports on value addition which will be useful for industrialists as well as our readers.

The objective of this series is to encourage and introduce country’s future entrepreneurs, to make the industrialists and other relevant parties aware of potential businesses.

Interested parties can contact the Uva Wellassa University for more details.

Cooked paneer

Dulani Chaturika Karunarathna, a past pupil of Anuradhapura Central College conducted a research to develop a ready to cook hard paneer to partial fulfilment of the requirement for the Animal Science Degree program at the Uva Wellassa University.

As she had a special liking for milk based food items since her childhood, she selected dairy science for her training area. She did her internship at MILCO Pvt Ltd.

Product

Paneer is a vegetarian food item and there is a growing demand in the world for vegetarian food items at present.

Even though paneer is highly nutritious with low production cost it is not popular among Sri Lankans.

In Sri Lanka there is paneer in raw form. People are reluctant to buy paneer due to lack of knowledge about the preparation method.

Chaturika has developed a ready to cook hard paneer cheese marinated with chilli sauce base using cow milk.

The results of this research will enhance the quality of paneer as well as it would bring a higher market value for paneer cheese, she said.

Further this research will be a great benefit for the paneer cheese producing companies in order to add value to their process line.

Her future plan is to produce innovative milk based value added products and further develop her broad based knowledge through education on ‘Animal Science’.

Paneer is an unaged, acid-coagulated, non-melting, soft cheese with high moisture content.

It is marble white in appearance with a slight spongy body and close -knit texture. It poses a mild sweetish acidic nutty flavour.

Paneer gives great value in diet because it is a rich source of high quality proteins, fat, minerals and vitamins. It is one of the few types of cheese indigenous to the Indian subcontinent.

This product is commercially produced in Sri Lanka only to the niche market.

However, there is a high market potential for this product in Sri Lanka if the quality, yield and shelf life could be improved.

Pressing weight and acid concentration are identified as two factors controlling the yield, shelf life and organoleptic characteristics of paneer.

Therefore, identification of optimum pressing weight and accurate acid concentrations are vitally important to improve the quality of paneer.

Some off flavours and undesirable organoleptic traits can be developed due to incorrect concentration of acid.

A higher acid concentration tends to impart an acidic flavour to it.

Therefore, it is very important to identify the optimum acid concentration to get a good quality paneer which has a better flavour.

Too much pressure results in loss of fat in the expressed whey giving reduced yield and a poor textured cheese. If too little pressure is used the curd does not mat properly and this gives a cheese with poor body and texture.

The flavour may also be affected because of entrapped whey between the curd particles.

In the present study, she has concentrated on identifying optimum acid concentration and pressing weight to prepare paneer with (1.) Maximum yield (2.) Organoleptic qualities and add value by marinating paneer cheese with chilli sauce base to develop a ready to cook product with a good shelf life. Here, paneer cheese was made according to the normal production process, changing the acid concentration and pressing weight (Using 1 percent citric acid).

Raw paneer

Three levels of acid concentration were taken and then curd was pressed in three levels accordingly.

Nine samples were obtained and were checked for maximum yield (fresh weight basis) and organoleptic traits (texture, colour, odour, taste and overall acceptability).

Then the shelf life of final products was analysed using microbial test (total plate count and Yeast and mold), chemical test (pH) and organolaetically.

Then cheese was marinated with chilli sauce base and developed ready to cook hard paneer.

This is a non melting cheese, which can be used as a basic ingredient for producing variety of value added products such as sweets, snacks etc. and will be popular among the consumers.

Further, the paneer cheese producing companies will be benefitted by adding value to their process line.