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kaladi | kalari cheese recipe | famous food of jammu and kashmir

blessmyfoodbypayal
Made from milk, kaladi is a ripened cheese which is a very dense & is usually sauted in its own fats.
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Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 10 minutes
Total Time 30 minutes
Course Side Dish
Cuisine Dogri, Jammu, North Indian
Servings 7 Kaladis

Ingredients
  

MAIN INGREDIENTS

  • 2 Liters Raw Milk (We have used Buffalo's. You can use Cow's milk also)
  • 2 cup Whey Water (Neither too fresh nor too old. Preferably 3-4 days old)

OPTIONAL INGREDIENTS

  • (You will find the reasons for mentioning these optional ingredients under the head "Note" in the body of the post. Dear readers are requested not to skip the Notes section, as it carries very vital information regarding preparation of Kaladi)
  • 1 tsp Citric Acid / Taatri / nimbu sat OR
  • Juice of half Lemon

Instructions
 

  • Boil whey water and keep aside.
  • Take a deep pan and add milk in it.
  • Place the pan on gas stove on high flame and warm the milk. You don't have to boil the milk. We repeat, don't boil the milk. To ascertain whether the milk is sufficiently warm is to put your finger in the milk. When you can feel the warmth but no trouble in keeping the finger inside milk for atleast 15-20 seconds, it is done.
  • The moment milk is warm, immediately switch off the flame. Better remove the pan from gas stove.
  • Pour the boiled whey water in milk and start stirring. The temperature of milk will rise as we have added boiling hot whey water in it, so nothing to worry now.
  • After 2-3 minutes of stirring, you will see that the milk will separate from the water. The texture of this milk will be quite creamy.
  • Then take a handful of this separated creamy milk floating over the water on your palm, wisely press it to squeeze the water and give it a shape of tikki. This is your kaladi.
  • Keep making all the kaladis and arrange them at a place where there is a way out to drain the leftover water present in the Kaladi.
  • (We have used some old bamboo basket already available at our home. You can try other methods like use some wide sieve or inner lid of rice cooker or whatever your imagination allows you to think. The only purpose is to create a space for water to drain out from kaladis).
  • At last when very less floating curdled milk is left in the pan which is not convenient to collect with hands, then pass the liquid through a sieve, hold the collected material within the sieve and make your last Kaladi.
  • Kaladi may take 3 to 4 days in getting dry completely, rather more days during winter. However after couple of hours when Kaladi stops dripping water, you can transfer it in refrigerator.

Notes

  1. You may reduce or enhance the quantity of milk depending upon your need of number of Kaladis.
2. In this recipe, the quantity of whey water is given as 2 cups. However you don't need to go by measurements strictly. The purpose of whey water is just to curdle the milk. So even if you have less or more whey, you can use it without much calculations. It is, however, important that whey should be of sufficient quantity capable to curdle the milk.
4. Using only whey water is the traditional and appropriate method to curdle the milk for making Kaladi, so preference should be given to this ingredient. But as the whey water is not so much sour, at times (especially during winters) the milk doesn't curdle inspite of adding liters of whey water. However there's a rare chance in summers for the milk not to get curdled.
So if you come across same situation and your milk has not been curdled even after waiting for 2-3 minutes after adding whey water, then, while the milk is still little warm, you are suggested to switch over to Optional Ingredients.
Do keep Citric Acid/Taatri or Lemon available with you. Immediately add citric acid/taatri into the milk. Alternatively, you can squeeze one lemon in milk to curdle it.
However avoid using Vinegar (as suggested by our milk vendor).
5. We have mentioned in para 10 & 11 herein above that Kaladi takes about 3 to 4 days in getting dry and only then cook it.
However we would let you know that the shopkeepers who prepare Kaladi start selling immediately after 2-3 hours of making it and they don't wait for 3-4 days to get it dried. And also Kaladi is being cooked by many even when it is still wet.
We advice you to wait for letting it get dried first. But if you can't wait for 3 days, then at least give it 8-10 hours to drain whole of its water. Even no harm in drying the Kaladi under the sun for couple of hours, though shopkeepers don't do like this.
6. Don't discard the leftover water as it is full of nutrition and proteins. We use this water for kneading the dough which makes the chapatis very soft. This time we made rice in this water. However you can make whey soup too.
7. The size of your kaladi is your personal choice. We made medium to big sized 7 kaladis out of 2 Lts. of milk.