Homemade cheese differs from the store for the better, as a rule, in price (20-40% lower), often in better taste, as well as certainty regarding those products from which it was prepared. To prepare it, you need to purchase a special leaven, which can be pepsin, renin or chymosin. It can be ordered online and received by mail.
In order to make soft cheese at home, 1.1-1.2 kg of cheese will require about 7-8 liters of milk, 1/10 bag of sourdough, an enamel pan, colander, a thermometer for liquids (oil, water), gauze.
Ferment dissolves in cold boiled water. The milk is heated to a temperature of + 32-35 degrees and the leaven is poured into it, the mixture is thoroughly mixed and left until the milk turns into jelly (somewhere in 40 minutes). Then, using a long knife, you need to cut it evenly.
To prepare cheese at home, the container with milk is transferred to the sink, where it is placed in another container with a water temperature of about 37 degrees. Then, by adding hot water from the tap, the water temperature in the lower tank is brought to 38-39 degrees and is maintained at that level. Now the mixture needs to be mixed every half hour. After about two hours, the cheese component thickens to an elastic state. The resulting serum is drained, and the mass is laid out on a colander. Soft cheese needs to be salted and held in suspension to completely remove whey. The product is stored in the refrigerator and must be consumed for several days.
Hard cheese at home is obtained from soft cheese. For this, the cheese mass is cooled, crushed into small pieces and salted to taste. Next, you need to take the container from under the mayonnaise and make several holes in the bottom. The container is completely covered with a clean cotton cloth and soft cheese is laid out in it. A saucer or lid is placed on top, on which the cargo is placed. After 6 hours, the fabric under the cheese changes, and the weight of the load increases. After a day, the cheese is taken out and laid on a wooden board in the refrigerator for ripening and the formation of holes for 1-2 weeks.
The resulting cheeses are very tasty fresh, but breaded cheese is a particularly gourmet dish. To do this, take 0.2 kg of cheese, mustard, 2 eggs, breadcrumbs and 0.1 kg wheat flour, finely chopped parsley, pepper. The cheese is cut into small sticks, rubbed with mustard and parsley, crumbled twice in the following sequence: flour, crackers, egg, then fried in vegetable oil.
For those who like to spread cheese on a bun, we inform you that processed cheese at home can also be cooked, and very quickly. To do this, take fat-free or low-fat cottage cheese (so that it crumbles into grains). A small amount of butter is heated in an aluminum saucepan, cottage cheese is added there and over a small fire it is heated until it melts.
The mixture must be constantly and vigorously stirred until the grains are completely dissolved. Cream cheese is obtained in the form of a yellowish mass, which can be either sweetened or salted, and finely chopped ham or greens can be added to it. The resulting product is likely to exceed the store counterparts, and cost much cheaper.