I really rather like cheese. A lot. Its very high up my list of foods I wonder what I would do if I was told I couldn’t eat it any more. Fingers crossed that never happens.
I’ve considered trying to make cheese at home for quite a while and even went as far as buying a really comprehensive book about home cheese making. But I never seemed to get around to it. Well, that is until recently when a couple of conversations made me think I should at the very least experiment.
I looked in the book I’d bought way back and pretty much everything required proper cheese starter culture. I wanted to go simpler than that and I tracked down a recipe in Casa Moro: The Second Cookbook.
I scaled down and used just one carton of milk and hey presto 12 hours later I had a wonderful fresh cheese like this:
The recipe is as follows (as adapted by me):
1 tbsp essence of rennet (note that essence of rennet has already been diluted if you use undiluted rennet you must dilute it first)
Warm the milk to roughly 32-37C.
Add rennet and stir.
Pour into a bowl and cover with cling film.
Leave in a warm place for 30-45 minutes.
The curds will have set so cut them into about 3cm cubes whilst still in the bowl. Be gentle.
Leave for a further hour in a warm place.
Strain the curds into a muslin lining a colander.
Leave for about 6 hours for the whey to drain.
Et voila you have a lovely fresh soft cheese.
Use the whey to make bread instead of milk or water.
I’ve since made this with goats milk, also delicious but the curds are more fragile.
Next up cow’s or sheep’s milk. Yum.
So what about the flavour? Is it v mild like fromage blanc or ricotta? Would you salt it?
I did have a scoot around last week for some sheep’s milk but to no avail, where oh where do we find it?
Lynne: Its very mild and the buffalo one was particularly creamy. I didn’t salt it but I think I will next time or perhaps add herbs.FoodUrchin: I think I may have found some online. Am hoping someone might notice this and point me at a sheep milks source as definitely want to try it with that.
Food Urchin: they most def have sheeps milk in Sainsbury’s
Lynne: really? Serves me right for only looking in Waitrose! I’ll be in Sainsbury’s tomorrow…..
well I am doubting myself now.. I checked mysupermarket.co.uk and they only show sheeps milk yoghurt not liquid milk. I’ll pop over tomorrow and check and let you know.
Wow, it’s so cool that you found Buffalo milk. Next you should make mozzarella di buffola!
it is amazing, so glad I found this via twitter
I have mentioned it on our blog, http://www.laverstokeparkblog.co.uk if you need help with anything else we produce, please let me know!