Cumin, Cardamom and Turmeric Spice Up Indian Cheese

Mansi Jasani

India is the world's largest dairy producer, with 22 percent of global production. But most of it was destined for milk, yogurt, butter, and non-melting paneer, until perhaps 10 to 20 years ago, when the art of artisanal cheese started slowly spreading throughout the country but with its own twist, the use of local ingredients and inclusions.

“We are a country that loves spices and herbs in our daily food,” declares Bombay cheesemaker, Mansi Jasani, “so flavored cheeses are highly popular.” She cites a street food called Pav Bhaji, which features several vegetables mashed together with a mix of local spices, including coriander, cumin, cloves, cardamom, cinnamon, fennel seeds, turmeric, Kashmiri red chili, and dried mango powder. At her company, The Cheese Collective, Jasani roasts and grinds this spice mixture and adds it to her cream cheese and goat cheese. In her role as a cheesemonger, Jasani regularly pairs European style cheeses with Indian foods, such as a French Selles-sur-Cher with a Gujarati pickle made of shredded mango, Kashmiri red chili, and raw sugar or herbed goat cheese with thick fenugreek flavored roti. She concludes that “from creatively using what’s local, to trying to make something new altogether, India is finally putting itself on the global cheese map, and I couldn’t be prouder!”

Himalayas. Photo credits to Steven Lasry on Unsplash

Around the country, there are other examples of cheesemakers incorporating locally familiar spices as well. Darima Farms in Northern India was established in 2016, in a remote village in the Himalayas, at an altitude of 7000 feet, surrounded by thick oak and rhododendron forest. The motto on their website is: “The cheese that screams India.” Their Zarai is named after a local Uttarakhandi spice mix also called Zarai (which features fenugreek, mustard, cumin, chili, pepper, and rock salt). These spices are mixed in the milk while making this aged cheese to produce a subtle flavor. 

Namrata Sundaresan and partner Anuradha Krishnamoorthy of Käse

In South India, fragrant, fresh turmeric leaves are only available in the coolest months of the year. They are prized in Ayurvedic practice for their therapeutic benefits and a necessary ingredient to celebrate Prathamastami, the festival for the firstborn, during which the aromatic leaves are wrapped around sweet rice dumplings, steamed and eaten. Cheesemaker Namrata Sundaresan and her partner Anuradha Krishnamoorthy of cheese shop Käse in the southern city of Chennai, have found a new use for turmeric leaves as well as other local herbs and spices such as moringa powder, lavender leaves, and rose petals: to gently introduce their fellow Indians to artisan cheese.

Brie dusted with moringa

“India has so much dairy, yet so little cheese,” says Sundaresan. A big part of the traditional Indian diet is yogurt, ghee and paneer she explains, but not aged cheeses. When she took her first cheese-making class in India in 2015, she was so inspired, she decided to become a cheesemaker.  After she completed a professional cheesemaking course at The New American School of Farmstead, Vermont, and other courses in Europe, she and Krishnamoorthy opened their shop Käse in 2017. But in largely vegetarian South India, fermented cheese is associated with rennet, a cultural no-no since it is made from the lining of a cow’s stomach and cows are sacred. Using vegetarian plant-based rennet solved that problem, but since aged cheese was a novel concept, Sundaresan found that her potential clients had many questions, and an important part of her job became education.  Mold, for example, was considered a bad thing, something one avoided eating. When the undulating, bumpy greyish crust of her brie seemed to turn people off, she had the idea to dust the entire cheese in deep green moringa powder (a nutrient-dense, traditional, plant-derived food).

Ode to Chennai, cheddar crusted with milagai-podi

A common question from customers was “how do I eat my cheese?” That led her to wrap feta and aged brie in turmeric leaves and dust other cheeses with familiar ingredients, like lentils, sesame seeds, and chili peppers. Käse’s biggest seller is their Ode to Chennai, a young cheddar crusted with milagai-podi  (a coarse mixture of ground dry spices such as dried chilis, black gram beans, chickpeas, salt and sesame seeds plus flax seeds.) Another favorite, called Flavours of the Mediterranean, is a gouda style cheese, aged with sumac and a zaatar rub.

“I wanted to pay homage to the place where I’m from, connect with our roots and help local farmers by incorporating seasonal local produce,” says Sundaresan.