The modern food industry offers consumers a huge variety of cheeses. Most of the inexpensive varieties, unfortunately, are prepared from low-grade raw materials, and elite are available to few. For this reason, many people interested in high-quality food try to cook cheese at home. The recipe from yogurt is the simplest example: a natural product without GMOs and synthetic additives can be obtained in just a few hours, without making much effort.
What do you need?
In order to make curd cheese, you must first make cottage cheese from it, from which this product is cooked. What is required for this:
- A large pot with a volume of at least five liters and a smaller one (1-2 liters) for cooking cheese.
- Skimmer on a long handle.
- Colander.
- Gauze folded in two to three layers.
- Cling film.
- The load to give the cheese the desired shape and density. If a small piece of cheese is cooked (no more than 1 kg), then a three-liter jar filled with water may well work.
The first stage: cooking cottage cheese
Before preparing cheese from yogurt, it is necessary 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 separated milk on the village market - excellent! It is important that the product is fresh, without a musty odor, which indicates that yogurt for more than three days.
Pour it into a large saucepan and put on fire, periodically stir 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 cheese blank?
When the yogurt begins to separate into cottage cheese and whey (it will acquire a light greenish tint), turn off the stove and allow the mass to cool to 30–35 degrees. Line a colander with gauze folded in several layers, and carefully pour the contents of the pan there, stirring with a spoon if necessary. Then carefully assemble its edges to the center, forming a knot with cottage cheese inside.
Press with your hands, helping the excess fluid come out faster, tie the edges so that the curd does not spill out. Leave the bundle in a colander and place a load on top of it (for example, a bottle of water). Leave for three to four hours, so that the remains of the serum flow out, but do not throw it away, because you can cook a lot of delicious pastries from it.
Cheese Ingredients
To prepare a slice of cheese from yogurt weighing about 500 grams, you need to take the following proportions of products:
- 3 liters of yogurt;
- 1/2 liter of fresh milk;
- 50 grams of butter;
- 1/2 tsp. salts and soda;
- 1 egg
Soda is placed in the cheese so that there are holes in its structure, like in Dutch or Poshekhonsky. She does not feel at all in taste, so there is no need to worry about it.
How to make simple cheese from homemade cottage cheese?
After the cottage cheese is ready for homemade milk curd cheese according to the recipe above, mix it with milk and put it on the stove again (fire below average), be sure to stir as often as possible. As in the previous recipe, it is important to prevent the product from boiling, 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 fire of the stove, put the mass back on cheesecloth and squeeze it, tied it into a knot and pressed it with a load. Leave in this condition for half an hour, and then move it into a small pot and send to a steam bath for heating. Be sure to stir, since during melting the mass will stick to the bottom.
This is also done so that the curd slices melt well, which will give the future cheese a uniform consistency. When the cottage cheese has melted and turns into a flowing cheese mass, add salt, egg, soda and oil, mix thoroughly and vigorously. The mass begins to bubble slightly, you need to continue mixing, achieving the ideal consistency. Line a wide-brimmed bowl with cling film, lightly grease it and pour in the cheese mass, smoothing the top and pressing it lightly, compressing the cheese. Cover with plastic wrap and send to a cool place for complete cooling. You can put a load on top to give it a denser shape.
You need to know
Homemade yogurt cheese cooked 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 saturated.
The only condition: to store cheese from yogurt should only be in polyethylene, as it is quickly ventilated and stale. If there is free access to whey renewal, then the finished product can be stored in it by adding a generous pinch of salt to the mixture and updating it every 4–5 days to avoid acidification.
Flavored cheese with herbs and garlic
Home-made dairy products are good in that their taste is almost always unique, since each manufacturer uses his own special set of spices and spices in a ratio that is close to his taste. Sometimes simple additives can work wonders, as in a recipe for yogurt cheese with herbs. The finished product is ideal for making sandwiches, stuffing vegetables, cooking rolls and casseroles.
- 2 liters of yogurt;
- 400 grams of sour cream;
- 1 tsp vinegar
- 1 bunch of dill, plus a few sprigs of basil;
- 1/2 tsp salts;
- 1 tsp provencal herbs;
- 1 tbsp. l refined oil;
- 2-3 cloves of garlic.
If the combination of cheese and garlic is not pleasant, then it can be replaced with chili pepper (ground) or ordinary paprika. Some add fresh bell pepper (1/2 pcs.), Chopping it in a blender, then the finished product takes an unusual look: green and red blotches create a pleasant impression and a desire to try it as soon as possible.
Step cooking
From curdled milk with vinegar, cook the curd in the traditional way and wait for the whey to drain. Grind the garlic in the press, mix with salt, spices and very finely chopped dill. Basil leaves also try to chop as finely as possible and add to the overall mixture. Send oil there and grind 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 curd. Achieve a perfect blend of ingredients. With a clean gauze, folded three times, lay a colander, put the resulting cheese mass there and, collecting it in a knot, hang it over a bowl so that the remains of whey (from which very tasty pancakes are made) flow down into it. In this condition, leave the cheese for 10-12 hours in a cool place without excess moisture. After that, remove the gauze - the product is ready for use. You can store it in fresh whey for up to two weeks, although everyone who prepared it says that it is eaten very quickly, as it is very tasty.
Based on the foregoing, we can conclude that cheese from yogurt at home is much better than in mass production. 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 curd cheese.