It is difficult to find a representative of the older generation who would never have tried cream cheese. In the conditions of the deficit characteristic of the Soviet period of our history, this cheap product was a frequent guest at the tables of our fellow citizens. Despite the fact that today the store shelves are bursting with delicacies, it does not lose its popularity. In this article you will learn an original and simple recipe for cream cheese (with photo), as well as recipes for dishes that can be prepared from it.
What is made of
Cream cheese is a delicious dairy product. It is obtained as a result of processing cottage cheese. Rennet or special melting cheeses can also be used as raw materials. They also include butter, as well as other dairy products and spices. In the manufacture of the product, the cheese mass is melted at a temperature of 75-95 ° C. To obtain the desired consistency, special melting salts are included in the ingredients.
A bit of history
Cream cheese was invented in 1911 in the city of Thun (Switzerland). His recipe was invented by Walter Gerber and Fritz Stettler. They used emmental cheese as a raw material , to which sodium citrate was added. Gourmets liked the novelty, but it was not immediately widespread.
Five years later, James Kraft, the founder of the well-known Kraft Foods company to this day, patented a new method for the production of processed cheese. In 1950, his company was the first in the world to sell such a sliced product. It was several times cheaper than the traditional one, since inexpensive ingredients were used for its production. This circumstance provided the new cheese with a rapid increase in popularity, first in the United States and then in Europe.
In the USSR, this product began to be produced since 1934 at the Moscow processed cheese plant built and equipped specifically for this purpose. In the early 1940s, the range of enterprises was expanded. In particular, the manufacture of cheaper processed cheese from skim milk was mastered. Later in the 1960s, the popular products Druzhba, Omichka, Volna, and Amber began to be produced.
Cream cheese
Making such a tasty and healthy spread on bread is quite simple. To do this, you will need:
- 70 g butter;
- 350 g of cottage cheese;
- 1 egg
- 1/2 tsp. soda and dried dill;
- salt to taste.
To make cream cheese, you need:
- Cut the butter into small pieces and place in a deep bowl.
- Flood it in the microwave or in a water bath.
- Pour a slightly beaten egg into the melted butter, mix well, combine this mixture with cottage cheese, pour in soda, and mix again.
- Grind the mass with a blender so that a mixture with small grains of cottage cheese is obtained.
- Boil water in a small saucepan, reduce heat, put a bowl of curd-egg mass in a water bath.
- Melt, stirring until lumps of cottage cheese begin to melt. Continue cooking until the mass is viscous.
- Add salt, dried herbs and additives; knead the mixture.
- Pour the hot cream cheese into flat shapes.
When the product has cooled, you can remove the film formed on the surface of the cheese. Before use, cool it in the refrigerator.
Cream Cheese Soup: What You Need
This is a satisfying first course. It can be obtained using the following ingredients:
- 2 processed cheese of any brand;
- 4 potatoes;
- 2 chicken legs;
- greens (any of your choice) to taste;
- pepper to taste;
- 50 g rye or crackers of white bread;
- 2.5 liters of water;
- salt to taste;
- 1 medium-sized carrot;
- 1 large onion;
- 2 tbsp. l vegetable oil.
Step by step recipe
Cooking cream cheese soup (photo above) begins with the preparation of chicken broth. For this, the legs are poured with water and brought to a boil. Then the liquid is drained. Pour chicken legs with hot water and cook until tender.
When the meat is ready, it is removed from the bones, cut and transferred to the dishes with a lid. The broth is filtered.
The potatoes are peeled. Cut into large cubes, put in the broth and cook until tender.
Onions and carrots are peeled and chopped. Sauté the vegetables in the warmed vegetable oil, having previously grated the carrots on a coarse grater and chopped the onion into cubes. When they soften, add vegetables to the broth. Boil the soup for about 2 minutes. Grind it with a blender to the state of liquid puree.
Cheese pre-chilled in the refrigerator is cut into small cubes. Add them to the soup and cook until completely dissolved.
For the manufacture of crackers take bread. Cut it into small cubes and fry in a dry pan until a golden crust forms.
Before serving, put in a bowl with soup slices of pre-cooked chicken meat, crackers and fresh herbs.
Egg and Prune Salad
For cooking you will need:
- 3 cloves of garlic;
- 3 processed cheese;
- green onions;
- 300 g of prunes;
- 100 ml of mayonnaise;
- 50 g of walnut kernels;
- 4 eggs.
Prunes are poured with boiled water, left to settle for 10 minutes, and then cut into small pieces. G nuts are scrolled through a meat grinder, chopped green onion , crushed peeled garlic with a knife, and boiled chicken eggs are cut into cubes. After mixing all the prepared ingredients, add light or homemade mayonnaise. After the salad is left to infuse for 15 minutes in the refrigerator. When served, garnish with nut kernels.
Salad with cream cheese and prunes is best obtained from this product of the brands "Amber" or "Wave", which must be cut into cubes.
Jewish salad with tartlets: products
This delicious, popular appetizer is made with the minimum amount of the simplest ingredients. It will be required:
- 3 pcs. processed cheese and garlic cloves;
- 2 eggs;
- 3-4 tbsp. l homemade or light mayonnaise;
- several branches of basil;
- tartlets or loaf.
Cooking salad
First you need to boil hard-boiled 2 chicken eggs. If they were in the refrigerator, then before you put them in cold water and put on fire, it is better to hold them for several minutes at room temperature. In order for the eggs to turn out to be really hard-boiled, the dishes with them must remain on fire for 10 minutes after the boiling begins.
While they are preparing, the cream cheese is grated.
The finished eggs are removed from the heat and immediately cooled under cold water. Separate the boiled protein from the yolk and grate it. Egg white is added to the cheese.
Rub garlic on a grater, mix with mayonnaise and other ingredients and carefully rub with a fork so that there are no lumps.
Options
You can give different flavors to salads with cream cheese. To do this, the resulting mass must be divided into 3 parts and put into different salad bowls. The mixture from the first can be served without additives, and over the other two thirds you can "conjure."
To do this, take a sprig of basil and chop the leaves with a knife. Add 1 tsp. mayonnaise and grind, so that the mixture becomes greenish and absorbs the taste of seasoning.
A grated egg yolk is added to the third bowl and mixed until a mixture of uniform consistency and a yellowish tint is obtained.
Innings
If you do not want to offer guests a salad in bowls, then you can arrange it on tartlets. They can be purchased ready-made or baked on their own. Jewish cheese salad is especially tasty if served in puff pastry tartlets.
You can cook such an appetizer with croutons. To do this, they are fried, rubbed with garlic and spread the salad on top. To make croutons look beautiful, cheese mass can be squeezed onto toasted bread from a plastic bag with a cut edge.
Before serving, you can sprinkle salad with finely chopped herbs.
Sprat salad with cheese
You can get a delicious snack from canned fish. To make it, sprats (1 can) are ground in a bowl, finely chopped onions (1 onion) are added, black pepper, grated cream cheese (1 package) are added, 1 tbsp. l mayonnaise and chopped greens. All mix and serve, spread on bread rolls or in tartlets.
Now you know some original recipes with cream cheese, and you can surprise your guests with tasty and inexpensive snacks.