Cottage cheese is a product, unique in its nutritional properties, that is useful to almost everyone. it is especially necessary at an early age, when the child is actively growing, his teeth begin to appear, and the need for calcium and proteins is high, and, as you know, cottage cheese is one of the best sources of both. Unfortunately, in our time it is difficult to be sure of the quality of store products, and a child needs only the very best, fresh and natural. There are, of course, special baby products, but they are sometimes unreasonably expensive, and this is not always affordable for young parents, especially if the baby is breast-fed. Cooking cottage cheese at home from milk or kefir of necessary fat content will help to solve the problem.
In order to make cottage cheese at home, you need either sour milk or ready-made kefir. If you settled on milk, then it is best to purchase the most ordinary milk in bags, because, firstly, it has several options for fat content, and you can choose the one you need, and secondly, it is guaranteed to turn sour, unlike milk in cardboard packages, in- thirdly, it is pasteurized and, accordingly, safe, but, let’s say, homemade milk for cooking cottage cheese is usually not boiled, and such cottage cheese does not guarantee absolute safety. If you decide to make cottage cheese at home from kefir, then kefir in packages will also be the best choice. Milk can be fermented in the usual way by adding some fermented milk product to it and waiting for a while, but you can speed up the process by heating this mixture over low heat until completely curdled. It is advisable to wait a little before this, so that the milk curls for sure.
In order to cook cottage cheese at home, you need to heat kefir or sour milk in a special way so that it does not boil and warms evenly - so the curd turns out to be tender and tasty. There are several ways to do this. The most reliable is a water bath, but you can also in the oven by placing a jar of sourdough there. In any case, you will have to carefully monitor the milk and not miss the moment when the curd mass is completely separated from the whey, and it, in turn, will not begin to boil, otherwise the curd will turn out to be hard. If you decide that your option is to cook cottage cheese at home, then you need to learn how to determine this with maximum accuracy. Then the dishes need to be removed from the fire and wait until the whey has completely exfoliated, and the whole mass will completely rise up. After this, you need to strain the serum through cheesecloth, preferably folded in several layers, and the curd is ready. You can hang gauze with cottage cheese for a while, so that the excess liquid in the glass - then the cottage cheese will turn out to be drier.
For those who can not eat acidic foods, as well as those who need an increased intake of calcium, you can cook calcined curd. It is made from ordinary milk by heating it with the addition of a solution of calcium chloride. Cooking cottage cheese at home according to this recipe is as follows: two tablespoons of calcium chloride are taken per liter of milk and added to milk heated to 40-50 degrees, and the resulting mixture is brought to a boil. As a rule, milk is curdled immediately after adding the solution, and if this does not happen, then you need to add a little more until it does curl. In this case, you must constantly try it after each addition, otherwise a bitter taste may appear, and the calcium content will be excessive, and this is also bad. In order for the cottage cheese to surely turn out, you need to buy unboiled milk, for example, in bags. calcined curd is very tender and has a very pleasant creamy taste, and young children eat it with pleasure.
The most delicious cottage cheese is, of course, obtained from homemade milk. Of course, it is not suitable for very young children and people with certain diseases, but if there are no contraindications, and there is confidence in the absolute safety of milk, then it is best to cook cottage cheese from it. Cooking cottage cheese at home from whole milk can occur by any of the above methods. If you leave the can of milk to sour without stirring, and then place it in the oven to prepare the cottage cheese, you will get a delicious cottage cheese with large pieces: this will not work out of any store milk.