Cheese from curdled milk: recipes, cooking secrets, tips and tricks

2024 Author: Isabella Gilson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:14

The modern food industry offers the consumer a huge variety of cheeses. Most of the inexpensive varieties, unfortunately, are prepared from low-grade raw materials, and the elite ones are available to a few. For this reason, many people interested in a quality food product try to make cheese at home. The sour milk recipe is the simplest example of this: a natural product without GMOs and synthetic additives can be obtained in just a few hours, without much effort.

What do you need?

In order to make cheese from curdled milk, you must first make curd from it, from which this product is cooked. What you need:

1. A large saucepan with at least five liters and a smaller one (1-2 liters) for boiling cheese.
2. Skimmer with long handle.
3. Colander.
4. Gauze folded in two or three layers.
5. Food wrap.
6. Weight for giving cheese the desired shape and density. If a small piece of cheese is cooked (no more than 1 kg), then a three-liter jar may well fit,filled with water.

First step: cooking cottage cheese

Before making curdled milk cheese, you need to make cottage cheese. To do this, take fresh yogurt with a fat content of at least 3.2%. If there is an opportunity to buy real, not skimmed milk at the village market - great! It is important that the product is fresh, without a musty smell, which indicates that yogurt has been aged for more than three days.

Pour it into a large saucepan and put on fire, stirring occasionally with a slotted spoon so that the settling pieces of cottage cheese do not stick to the bottom. Warm the yogurt to 50-55 degrees, but do not allow boiling, otherwise the grains of the curd mass will become too tight, and the cheese will subsequently turn out to be of poor quality.

How to make a blank for cheese?

When yogurt begins to separate into curd and whey (it will acquire a slight greenish tint), turn off the stove and let the mass cool down to 30–35 degrees. Line a colander with gauze folded in several layers, and carefully pour the contents of the pan into it, stirring with a spoon if necessary. Then carefully gather its edges to the center, forming a knot with cottage cheese inside.

Press with your hands, helping the excess liquid come out faster, tie the edges so that the curd does not get enough sleep. Leave the bundle in a colander, and put a load on top of it (for example, a bottle of water). Leave for three to four hours so that the remaining whey flows out, while you should not throw it away, because you can cook from itlots of delicious pastries.

Ingredients for making simple cheese

To prepare a piece of yogurt cheese weighing about 500 grams, you need to take the following proportions of products:

• 3 liters of curdled milk;
• 1/2 liter fresh milk;
• 50 grams of butter;
• 1/2 tsp each s alt and soda;
• 1 egg.

Soda is put into cheese so that there are holes in its structure, like Dutch or Poshekhonsky cheese. It doesn't taste at all, so you don't have to worry about it.

How to make a simple cottage cheese cheese?

After the cottage cheese for homemade yogurt cheese according to the recipe above is ready, mix it with milk and put it on the stove again (lower than medium heat), be sure to stir as often as possible. As in the previous recipe, it is important not to allow the product to boil, otherwise the cottage cheese will harden even more and become unsuitable for further use. When there is a new separation of the curd mass from the whey, turn off the stove fire, throw the mass back onto gauze and squeeze it out, tying it in a bundle and pressing it with a load. Leave it in this state for half an hour, and then transfer it to a small saucepan and send it to a steam bath to heat it. Be sure to stir, as during melting the mass will stick to the bottom.

This is also done so that the curd pieces melt well, which will give the future cheese a uniform consistency. When all the cottage cheese has melted and turned into a flowing cheesemass, add s alt, egg, soda and oil, mix thoroughly and vigorously. The mass will begin to bubble slightly, you need to continue mixing, achieving the perfect consistency. Cover a bowl with wide edges with cling film, lightly grease with butter and pour the cheese mass into it, smoothing the top and slightly pressing it, compacting the cheese. Cover with foil and send to a cool place to cool completely. You can put a weight on top to give it a tighter shape.

You need to know

Homemade yogurt cheese prepared in this way can be eaten immediately after cooling (4-5 hours), but it becomes much tastier when it lies in a cool place for at least three days. Then its structure becomes denser, the taste is more intense.

The only condition is that curdled milk cheese should be stored only in polyethylene, as it quickly winds up and becomes stale. If there is free access to whey renewal, then the finished product can be stored in it, adding a generous pinch of s alt to the mixture and renewing it every 4-5 days to avoid souring.

Fragrant cheese with herbs and garlic

Homemade dairy products are good because their taste is almost always unique, because each manufacturer uses his own special set of spices and spices in the ratio that is close to his taste. Sometimes simple additions can work wonders, as in the recipe for yogurt cheese with herbs. The finished product is ideal for making sandwiches, stuffing vegetables, making rolls.and casseroles.

• 2 liters of curdled milk;
• 400 grams of sour cream;
• 1 tsp vinegar;
• 1 bunch of dill and a few sprigs of basil;
• 1/2 tsp s alt;
• 1 tsp Provence herbs;
• 1 tbsp l. refined oil;
• 2-3 cloves of garlic.

If you don't like the combination of cheese and garlic, you can replace it with chili pepper (ground) or regular paprika. Some people add fresh bell pepper (1/2 pcs.), Grinding it in a blender, then the finished product takes on an unusual look: green and red blotches create a pleasant impression and a desire to try it as soon as possible.

Step cooking

From yogurt with vinegar, cook cottage cheese in the traditional way and wait for the whey to drain. Grind the garlic in a press, mix with s alt, spices and very finely chopped dill. Try to chop the basil leaves as finely as possible and add to the total mixture. Send the oil there and rub it thoroughly. If a mortar is available, then it is better to use it, if not, use a blender at maximum speed.

Add sour cream to the resulting mass, mix thoroughly and combine it with the finished cottage cheese. Achieve the perfect blend of ingredients. Line a colander with clean gauze folded in three, put the resulting cheese mass there and, gathering it in a bundle, hang it over a bowl so that the remaining whey flows into it (from which very tasty pancakes are obtained). In this conditionleave the cheese for 10-12 hours in a cool place without excess moisture. After that, remove the gauze - the product is ready for use. It can be stored in fresh whey for up to two weeks, although everyone who cooked it says that it is eaten very quickly, as it is very tasty.

Based on the foregoing, we can conclude that yogurt cheese at home is much better than in mass production. At the same time, there is no doubt that only high-quality ingredients were used in its preparation. Based on these recipes, you can experiment with additives and create your own versions of homemade yogurt cheese.