Kalakand is a sweet dessert made with paneer, milk, and sugar, topped with pistachios. It is usually served in square portions and can be garnished with almonds. Homemade paneer is made by heating milk and lemon juice. Low-fat milk can be used but whole milk is preferred. Some chefs substitute cottage cheese for paneer and use condensed milk to make the dish creamier.
Kalakand is a milk and cheese based dessert popular in North and East India. It is made with paneer, milk and sugar topped with pistachios. This dish is usually served cut into individual portions which are typically shaped like squares. It’s cold and soft and sweet, and the squares are gelatinous with a slight crunch from the nuts on top. Although the basic kalakand is made of cheese and sweetened milk only, some varieties of this dish contain fruits or vegetables with flavors that blend well with this milky dessert.
To make kalakand, a soft cheese called paneer is added to boiling milk, then sweetened and cooked until it starts to thicken. The hot mixture is poured onto a greased flat surface, where it is allowed to cool to a jelly-like texture. Once cooked, the dish is cut into portions and garnished with flakes or slices of pistachio. Kalakand can also be garnished with sliced almonds.
Making Kalakand at home starts with homemade paneer, a popular cottage cheese made from milk and lemon juice. Paneer is used in both sweet and savory recipes of Indian cuisine. It can be cooked or served cold with a dish, or it can be eaten fried as a snack.
To make paneer, milk is thoroughly heated and stirred until it boils. This should be done gradually so that none of the milk burns. When the milk is at a moderate boil, a small amount of lemon juice is stirred into a cup of hot water and added to the boiling milk. This causes the milk to revert back into a substance like cottage cheese, which is rinsed to remove the lemon juice, then drained of excess water using cheesecloth.
The best type of milk for paneer has a high fat content. Most of the cooks use whole milk to make paneer for kalakand. Low fat milk can also be used, but it is not as good as whole milk for making paneer. Using low fat milk will result in a lower yield of paneer from the same amount of milk. Paneer can also be bought at the store, but store-bought versions generally contain more fat than homemade paneer.
Some chefs substitute cottage cheese for paneer when making a quick, non-traditional version of kalakand. Some modified kalakand recipes are prepared in the microwave rather than on the stove. When cooking milk for this dish, adding a small amount of water to the cooking container before boiling the milk can help reduce the chances of burning the milk. When cooking paneer in sweetened milk, condensed milk can be used instead of whole milk to make the dish creamier and to help it thicken quicker.
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