Homemade cottage cheese is a useful dietary fermented milk product. On how to make it yourself, readers will be able to learn from this article. It describes how and from which to cook cottage cheese at home. Having studied all the information below, everyone can make a valuable food product in their kitchen.
Stage number 1. Preparation of products
What to cook cottage cheese from? We deal with the list of ingredients. Tasty, fragrant and crumbly home-made cheese (this is what cottage cheese was called in the old days) can be made only from natural cow's milk. It is allowed to use goat, but it has its own specific smell, which is transmitted to products made from it. The fatter the milk, the more nutritious and caloric the cottage cheese will turn out. All, no more ingredients are needed to make homemade cheese. Some hostesses recommend adding a few tablespoons of sugar to milk. This is necessary in order to speed up the souring process. But in order for the cottage cheese to turn out to be natural, it is advisable to "not rush it", but let the milk sour naturally. How to cook cottage cheese from milk? We talk about this further.
Stage number 2. Milk turns into kefir
Put milk in a warm place (but not in direct sunlight) for a day. The lid on the jar should not be worn tightly, the neck should simply be covered. Mixing the contents of the container, shaking it during the souring of milk is impossible, otherwise you may get a loose cheese clot. When milk turns into yogurt, the time will come to process it further. How to find out that the product is sour as needed? Take a closer look at the jar. Air bubbles should be released in the milk fluid. Spoon the contents of the jar with a spoon. Ready yogurt will have a thick consistency similar to jelly.
Stage number 3. Heat treatment
Now you know what to cook cottage cheese from. From milk, which, as a result of souring, turns into yogurt. Pour it into a clean enameled or stainless pan and place on a very low fire. Preheat the workpiece for about 10 minutes and turn off the stove. Leave the dairy product to cool completely. During this time, the whey will separate from the cottage cheese. You will see grains of cottage cheese floating in a clear yellowish liquid. This is whey, by the way, also a valuable dietary product that can be used to make dough, okroshka, and marinades for meat.
Stage number 4. Separate the cottage cheese from the whey
On a bucket, put on a bag made of gauze or cotton. Drain the sour-milk mass from the pan into it. Immediately all the whey will not come down in a bucket. Tie a knot on the bag and hang it. This is convenient to do in the bathroom, above which the clothesline is located. Gradually, the whey will disappear, and the homemade cottage cheese will remain in the textile bag, which is completely ready for use or preparing dishes from it.
"Quick" cottage cheese: recipe
If you have fresh milk and cottage cheese needs to be obtained as soon as possible, it is recommended to use the method of its preparation described in the following instructions.
Heat 3 liters of milk over low heat for 10 minutes. In the meantime, squeeze the juice out of two small lemons. Pour it into a milk in a thin stream, not ceasing to mix. Leave the workpiece for 5 minutes. Next, add another juice from one lemon into it. Milk will begin to curl. When the workpiece has cooled, drain it through cheesecloth and hang it.
How to cook cottage cheese from kefir industrial production?
There are two ways to get homemade cottage cheese from purchased kefir - warm and cold. Consider both of them.
Warm way
Pour kefir from the bag into a jar or saucepan. Leave it in a warm place for several hours. When the whey begins to separate, transfer the container to a water bath. Preheat the workpiece for 5 minutes. Next, cool it and drain through a fabric bag as described in the previous part of the article.
Cold way
Gathering information about what to cook cottage cheese, think about yogurt. It is about that which is sold in plastic bags in each dairy department of supermarkets. If it is not possible to buy homemade milk or yogurt, then it is the store yogurt that can help you out in this situation. Consider the method of preparing cottage cheese by pre-cooling the dairy product. Put the package with kefir in the freezer for two days. Then take it out and cut it. Put frozen kefir in a colander with small holes or a sieve and place it over a pan or bucket. As it melts, the whey will go to the bottom of the container. Gentle white curd will remain in the colander.
Calcined cottage cheese: we make a healthy product at home
The product, prepared according to the following description, is characterized by low acidity, which is especially recommended for baby and diet food. In order to prepare cottage cheese from sour milk enriched with Ca, you will need calcium lactic acid in the amount of 3 teaspoons (12 g), 20 grams of boiled cooled water and 2 liters of whole milk.
Cooking method
Dissolve calcium in water. Bring the milk to a boil and remove from heat. Pour calcium solution drop by drop into it, while stirring the contents of the container all the time. During this process, milk will be curdled. Leave the resulting product to cool completely. Next, separate the cottage cheese from the whey in the previously described way. So that the liquid moves away faster, you can put a bag of fermented milk product under oppression. From two liters of milk, 300-400 grams of cottage cheese will turn out.
Is it possible to make homemade cheese from sour cream?
It’s unlikely that you can cook cottage cheese from sour cream. This fatty dairy product is even a pity to process it. During heat treatment of sour cream, whey with a high content of healthy fats will separate, and there will be no cheese clot as such. Sour cream is used to make homemade butter by whipping. But it is also used in the preparation of cottage cheese as an additional ingredient to yogurt or kefir. In this way, the fermented milk product is enriched with fat.