Cooking with paneer -- why doesn't it melt when it's cooked?

A

Amaretta

New member
I just watched a show on the Veria channel where the host cooked a paneer korma. He described paneer as being an Indian cheese similar to mozzarella. But mozzarella melts when it's heated with other foods. Yet the paneer retained its shape when cooked, much like tofu. Why is that? Why doesn't it melt?
Perhaps pressing the paneer does make a difference. But I would think the chemical structure of paneer and mozzarella would be similar if they are both milk-based cheeses, unless paneer is made of a low-fat milk rather than whole milk.
 
Lol, I'm Indian too, and I have no freaking idea. I would say "magic," but "chemistry" is a more likely answer.

Ok, so here's my guess. The paneer that is cooked in curries is pressed paneer. Paneer starts off as a fluffy white cheese, but then it's pressed into firm slabs that you can cut into cubes. This pressing creates a very dense structure and that may be part of the reason it doesn't melt. It is also probably not very fatty. Animal based fats (like butter, or lard) melt when exposed to heat. If there is not a lot of fat in the cheese, it will keep its shape. So, I think paneer's chemical structure is almost entirely protein, much more than there is fat. It likely has a chemical structure similar to tofu, which as you noticed it resembles.
 
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