These and other well-known names of cheeses, to be honest, evoke the desire to see them more often on your table.
But, firstly, well-known global brands are not the cheapest pleasure when it comes to middle-income families, and even though the statistics are always overpriced, and secondly, far from every store you can find the right assortment.
There is a third aspect that makes it difficult to purchase your favorite product. Nevertheless, they understand that the Philadelphia cheese is not brought from overseas, but is produced somewhere nearby, from what is, and this very “what is” can only turn out to be like cheese, but not cheese at all.
The question of what to do is, for a Russian person, rather a rhetorical one, or simply reminds one of reading the works of a Russian classic with the same name in his youth. If we recall how Lefty was forging a flea, then making cottage cheese at home so that it meets all the stated requirements is not a problem at all.
Cottage cheese at home - basic technological principles
Among all types of cheese created over the history of mankind, cottage cheese is a separate and very large group, judging by the individual names and place of origin. But the curd cheese combines the same, with the exception of some individual nuances, the technology for their preparation.
First of all, raw materials influence varietal and species diversity. Cheese is made from cow, goat, sheep, and buffalo milk, so its taste and quality characteristics have differences. Sometimes, due to the lack of specific raw materials, for example, sheep’s milk is replaced with cow’s milk, as in the case of the Feta production - this cheese in Greece, the country of origin, is traditionally made from goat’s or sheep’s milk, while in our country it can be made from cow's milk.
The quality of milk and its biochemical composition also affects the technological process of cheese production and, as a result, its taste. For example, goat’s milk, due to its composition, coagulates worse than cow’s, and therefore either special fermentation and enzymes are used to make cheese, or goat’s milk is mixed with cow’s.
The first conclusion begs: in order to cook curd cheese at home, just like any other cheese, an initial level of preparation for a dairy industry technologist is necessary for every housewife - after all, each of us, at least once in our life, cooked curd in our kitchen. If something did not work out, then it's time to study the issue of cheese making a little deeper.
The next aspect to be considered in more detail. - preparation of raw materials for cottage cheese at home.
In general terms, the technology for producing raw materials for all types of cheese consists in fermenting milk, raw or pasteurized. During souring, sour-milk bacteria are introduced or it occurs naturally. Further, to obtain cheese grain, milk is heated, coagulation (coagulation) of milk protein occurs. The resulting mass, cottage cheese, is separated from the serum.
Further technology for the preparation of cheeses has differences in density, method of manufacture.
Curd cheeses are fresh cheeses that, after receiving the curd grain, are not further processed, melted and smoked. These cheeses have a soft, sometimes even pasty consistency, as well as semi-soft cheeses with a curd or creamy taste, cooked in the cold way. Fresh cheeses have a relatively short ripening period, they are subjected to very little pressing. This category of cheeses includes brine cheeses (Feta, feta cheese), as well as blue cheeses (Dorblu, Roquefort), special (Ricotta).
In addition to those already listed above, of the most famous fresh cheeses, you can also name suluguni, Adyghe cheese and many others. Of course, this list can be expanded to several hundred names, because in every country in the world, and even in every city in the country, there are cheese-making traditions, but many cheese lovers do not even suspect that they have tried, at best, a couple of dozen names of cheese from more one and a half thousand existing in the world today.
Since the technology for making curd cheeses at home is simple and old, like the world, and it was known to people more than seven thousand years ago, we better focus on the most interesting recipes that cheese gourmets will like.
Recipe 1. Dor Blue - curd cheese at home
Composition:
Natural milk (homemade) 6 L
Sour cream (20%) 500 g
Acidin-Pepsin 9 tablets
Cheese "Dor Blue"
Salt to taste
Order of preparation:
Heat milk and sour cream to 25-30 ° C. Pound the tablets into powder and dissolve in a small amount of warm water. It will take a small piece of original cheese to remove mold from it; you can buy it once to get a fungus culture, and then leave part of the homemade cheese to prepare the next portion of cheese. Such a trick will allow you to easily get the original taste of cheese.
Important: dishes, hands, and all items that will come in contact with cheese during cooking must be sterile to prevent any other microorganisms from entering the blue cheese. Treat all objects and hands with alcohol.
Heat approximately 0.5 L of milk and inject mold collected from the purchased cheese into it. Leave on for 30-40 minutes, after mixing the milk well. The rest of the milk, warming, combine with sour cream. Cover with a clean cloth and leave at 20-25 ° C for ripening.
Carefully remove the resulting clot with a slotted spoon and transfer to a prepared form with holes at the bottom, for draining the serum. Place a pallet under the mold. It is better to use a deep pan as a pallet, because the whole process of preparing and ripening cheese will take about 10-14 days, and all this time the cheese must be kept under sterile conditions, creating a special microclimate for it. But at the same time, the pan cannot be closed tightly, since microorganisms need air to function.
In the process of preparation, the cheese will have to be turned over several times, so prepare the second form: they can be made from plastic containers for water (5 and 6 l). One of the forms should be slightly wider in diameter so that it is convenient to combine them and turn the cheese over.
To make such forms, cut off the upper part of the plastic flask, leaving a bottom with a wall height of 6-7 cm. In the bottom of each form, make holes with a hot metal nail or screw; you can make such holes with a heated soldering iron. After making the mold, be sure to disinfect.
When the milk clot becomes dense enough (it should be compressed naturally, without pressure), gently rub its surface with sodium chloride. Put the head on the dish for about 12 hours to let the cheese dry. If the serum is secreted intensively, then it needs to be drained, the cheese wet with a napkin and again treated with salt.
After that, take a medical syringe (20 mg) and, collecting milk with mold, inject it around the entire circumference of the cheese, from all sides, evenly.
Further care for the cheese until fully ripened consists in daily turning. It must be stored in a dark place, but at room temperature. Do not forget that you need to work with sterile hands. When the cheese has a characteristic smell, its surface will be covered with mold, wrap in parchment paper and put in the refrigerator, it will ripen for another 7 days (if you do not eat it earlier).
Recipe 2. Homemade mozzarella cheese, as in an Italian village
Composition:
Raw milk, homemade 5 l
Lemon juice 100 ml
Lipase 2.0 mg
Cooking:
Pour lemon juice and rennet into heated milk (20-25 ° C). Put the pan in a water bath, maintain the temperature not higher than 30 ° C, stir for 2-3 minutes, and then stop stirring until a dense clot forms. Try to cut the clot exactly into squares with a side of 1.5 cm, and after 5-10 minutes, increase the heating temperature by 10 ° C. Slowly, trying not to destroy the cubes, mix the mass until their density becomes sufficiently stable.
In a sieve or colander lined with gauze, after half an hour of continuous steam heating, carefully drain the separated whey along with the formed clots. After separating the whey, return the clot to the pan and gradually pour water heated to 70 ° C into it, while collecting a clot from the edges to the center with a wooden spatula. As a result of this action, the cheese mass should acquire a stretching consistency. Remove the brewed clot from the water with a slotted spoon and form 2-3 balls. To do this, mash the cheese first in flat cakes, and then wrap the edges inward. You need to do this while the cheese is warm and plastic. Put balls for cooling in cold water, and then in saline solution (100 g of salt per 1 liter of boiled water).
Recipe 3. Feta with Mint
Composition:
Goat and cow milk, whole (50/50) 5 l
Rennet (lipase, abomin, pepsin) 5 mg
Citric acid (10% solution) 100 ml
Salt, table - for brine (16%)
Peppermint, dried (100 g)
Working process:
Pour a solution of citric acid at room temperature and the prepared enzyme into warm mixed milk (grind the tablets into powder and dissolve in warm milk). Add chopped dry mint. Soak the milk before souring at room temperature, but it should remain liquid until it starts to heat on the stove. The heating temperature is not higher than 32 ° C. When the formed clot floats to the surface, cut it into cubes (2-3 cm), and after five minutes put them on the prepared cheesecloth, carefully removing the serum from the surface with a slotted spoon. Gather the edges of the cheesecloth and hang the cheese so that the remaining whey drains onto the pallet. Then put the cheese in the mold and under the press. When the mass is compacted, cut it into cubes a second time and store in the prepared brine.
Recipe 4. Philadelphia Creamy Pasta
Product Composition:
Natural Yogurt 0.5 L
Homemade cream 1.5 L
Rennet 2 tablets
Salt, kitchen
Citric acid 5 g
Cooking:
Dissolve tablets and citric acid in 250 ml of warm boiled water. When buying natural yogurt for making cheese, pay attention to the date of manufacture - it should be the freshest. If possible, cook it yourself, only milk, too, choose natural with a high percentage of fat content. Use regular kitchen salt, no additives. Yogurt and cream should be warm so that the ripening is faster.
Prepare a dense cloth, line it with a colander (the whole volume of cheese mass should fit in it). Set the colander on a pallet for draining the whey, and you can begin to prepare creamy curd cheese at home.
Combine the yogurt and cream in a saucepan. Pour the prepared solution of acid, salt and enzyme into the milk mass. Mix well and place in the warmest place in the kitchen, closer to the stove or to the battery. The time during which a clot appears depends on the room temperature. In principle, the mass can be warmed up in a water bath, but if you accidentally overheat, the curdled protein will brew very much, and the texture of the cheese will not be tender and creamy. Therefore it is better to wait.
Pour the contents of the pan into a colander. Cover with a cloth to prevent the formation of a windy crust. When the whey drains about halfway, and the cheese thickens noticeably, place oppression on top. It will take about twelve hours to make this cheese, but they will eat it much faster, especially if you make dessert or rolls of it for breakfast. In the evening you have to start all over again.
Recipe 5. Pickled cheese with spicy herbs on a wine sourdough
Composition:
Wine, homemade, apple 0.7 L
Whole milk fat 3 l
Enzyme 3 mg
Thyme, mint, basil (dry mix) 100 g
Salt
Cooking:
Warm the milk (the fatter the better) to 30 ° C. Add the prepared enzyme solution to it, pour in a glass of warm apple wine, add dried herbs ground into powder, mix. Wait until a dense clot forms. Remove it with a slotted spoon, shifting it into a colander lined with fabric. Cover with a napkin, saucer and put on top of oppression. When the cheese is sufficiently compacted, transfer it to the wire rack, sprinkle with salt on top, and then, after drying for 2-3 hours, put it together with the wire rack in a container, close and hide in the refrigerator. After a day, get the cheese, rinse it with boiled water on top, pat it with a napkin, and, pouring wine, sprinkling with herbs, hide it again in a clean and dry container, put it in the refrigerator. Repeat this procedure for two weeks: “wash” the cheese with water, irrigate with wine and sprinkle with herbs. After that, if you do not eat it all at once, wrap it in parchment for storage.
Recipe 6. Fruit curd cheese at home
Products:
Strawberry 300 g
Fructose 100 g
Cream, natural (homemade) 1.5 L
Sour cream (25%) 200 g
Milk Chocolate 300 g
Cooking:
Wash fresh strawberries (frozen berries can be used). Chop it with sour cream. Sourdough is ready. Put it in warm cream, adding fructose, and leave to ripen. Collect the resulting clot and transfer to a gauze napkin. Tie the edges of the fabric and hang the cheese over the bowl for 3-4 hours. Put the finished creamy fruit cheese in glasses. Cool and fill with melted chocolate.
Curd cheese at home - useful tips and tricks
It is not always possible to purchase such an ingredient for cottage cheese as mold or other microorganism cultures. But if you like Dor Blue, Gorgonzola or other cheese with a specific taste, and you want these cheeses more often present in the diet, and they are not cheap, then just buy once a small piece of your favorite cheese to get the necessary microorganisms. They can be transplanted into fresh curd cheese, in the process of preparation, and, as the French say, “voilà” - enjoy your favorite cheese as soon as your heart desires.
The best cottage cheese at home can only be made from natural homemade milk.
