How to make hard cheese at home?

In our country, the opinion that making cheese is a complex process that requires the use of serious equipment is quite common.According to many of our compatriots, if a household produces good cheese, it can only be done on farms in far Holland, and those who try to repeat the trick here can boast only a mediocre product. Naturally, such statements are far from the truth, since not so long ago in our country cheese was not produced at all by the industrial method, and therefore the hostesses massively prepared it themselves.

This can be repeated today, and possible failures are caused only by the fact that not everyone is involved in such culinary experiments now, and therefore some secrets have to be learned through long searches.

For many modern consumers, the decisive role in the choice of food is their caloric content, because you need to monitor the number of calories consumed so as not to spoil the shape. In most sources, you can find information that homemade cheese is much less calories than the shop. Thus, the indicators usually range from 110-115 kcal per 100 grams of product. Here it should be understood that there is a predominantly soft homemade cheese, which in concentration loses to the hard, in other words, there is more water that does not add calories to the product.

If you decide to make a real hard cheese and see that you did it, you should understand that the caloric content will be approximately equal to the hard cheese from the store. The exact nutritional value of such a product strongly depends on what kind of milk was used, therefore, for different varieties of cheese, the energy value may be relatively modest 210 kcal, and 360 kcal very dangerous for the figure. For this reason, the caloric content is easier to determine, starting from the original product and its quantity.

With BJU indicators, a similar pattern is observed, only proteins and carbohydrates, unlike fats, are usually presented in milk in approximately standard amounts. If you trust those professionals who indicate that 110 kcal in homemade cheese, it turns out that the protein in the product is 12.7%, fat - about 5%, and carbohydrates - about 4%. In practice, in the present solid cheese, the protein content will be approximately double, and the fat content will be approximately three times higher, whereas the carbohydrates in the final product will be 2-3 times less than 4%.

Residents of countries famous for centuries-old traditions of cheese making, prove that making hard cheese with their own hands is quite real. Considering how much such a product costs on the market or in a store, preparing hard cheese at home can significantly save the wallet, not to mention the fact that there is much more confidence in the safety of a home product. Before you cook hard cheese yourself, you need to understand some important points.

• Cheese can be made not only from milk, but also from cottage cheese, but since we are already pursuing naturalness, it is better to choose raw materials for home-made, rather than bought in a store. Heat treatment for such raw materials is contraindicated, but high fat content will only benefit cheese.
• Proper ripening of cheese implies a large volume of the prepared product, so you should not count on cooking a small portion, whose weight does not reach even half a kilogram. Given the consumption of ingredients for the production of cheese, this means that half a bucket of milk will not be much.

• For the production of hard cheese, you need a press or any available tools that can replace it. By itself, the cheese product will not become hard, because if you do not know how to press it, you will have a soft product.
• Unlike shop hard cheese, homemade food is not even stored in the refrigerator for more than a week - this is the price for the natural composition and the guaranteed absence of preservatives. In this case, the product is usually stored not in a plastic bag, but in paper.

The so-called Adygei variety has the simplest way to prepare dairy hard cheese, so modern housewives usually make it. For the preparation you will need three liters of cow's milk and a liter of kefir, as well as two teaspoons of salt, while the caloric content of the finished product will be about 240 kcal.

For a start, kefir is poured into the pan and they begin to heat it at minimum heat, and when the curd separates and emerges, it is collected with a skimmer and spread on gauze. The whey is not a waste either - for two days it is sour at room temperature, and the process of cheese making at this time is suspended.

When the whey is ready, fresh milk is first brought to a boil, and then the whey is poured into it and the gas is turned down to the minimum level. The result of long-term heating is the fact that a very soft cheese floats to the surface, which is drained using gauze. At this stage salt is added to the mass, then they are thoroughly mixed and hung up wrapped in all the same gauze over the sink in order to make the glass all unnecessary. Usually this procedure takes no more than half an hour.

Then the cheese is placed in a mold and placed under pressure in a refrigerator for several hours. In the process, he will get rid of the liquid remaining in it, after which it needs to be drained. At this point, the cheese is ready, but experts advise keeping it in the fridge for another two or three days - so the taste and smell will become more pronounced.

Most recipes for hard cheese from milk suggest either the use of special starters, which are not so easy to get, or a very lengthy preparation procedure. To speed up the process and do without the leaven, many housewives make cheese from the curd. However, milk is also needed here - one liter of liquid requires a kilogram of cottage cheese, 100 grams of butter, a couple of eggs and one spoon of soda and salt. The preparation of such a product will take only a little over an hour, however, and the caloric content will be much higher - up to 320 kcal per 100 grams of product.

To begin with, the milk is poured into a pot and placed on a moderate fire, where it must be heated to a boil. While the milk is boiling, it is necessary to grind the curd with a sieve, and as soon as the liquid begins to boil, the curd must be added to the container with milk. After this mixture should be allowed to cook for about ten minutes, without changing the power of fire.

After this time has elapsed, the thickened mixture is passed through a sieve, previously lined with gauze. All the thick will remain in the fabric, with its help it is necessary to squeeze the product slightly to squeeze out even more liquid. What remains is returned to the fire, at the same time all the other ingredients are added, which must be mixed separately before. After that, the resulting mass is once again well mixed and kept on medium heat for a total of not more than a minute.

After that, the product is almost ready. It is removed from the oven and allowed to cool. The form prepared for pressing cheese is smeared with a small amount of butter, after which a thick mass is placed there, covered with a press and sent to the refrigerator for a couple of hours. When this time passes, the press can be removed - the excess liquid is drained, and almost ready-made hard cheese is given another day in the refrigerator so that it finally ripens.

When the simplest recipes have already been mastered, an experienced housewife will come to the conclusion that you can prepare exquisite hard cheese better than the store itself, all you need is to figure out how to make a homemade product unusual. To do this, consider a couple of recipes for cooking atypical homemade cheese.

The guests are very impressed by the so-called marble cheese, and it is necessary to cook it at home, if only because the process takes less than an hour, not counting the extract, which also does not exceed a few hours.

To cook, pour a liter of milk into a saucepan and bring it to a boil, after which half a tablespoon of salt and a glass of sour cream, three eggs and ¾ cup of carrot juice are added to the liquid in a separate container. The last compound ingredient is added to the boiling milk gradually, with constant stirring. As a result, after five minutes of boiling, a well-marked layer of cottage cheese forms on the surface of the liquid, which is drained using a colander covered with gauze.

While boiled cottage cheese flows down, the procedure must be repeated anew with new ingredients, fully observing all the proportions, but with one difference - carrot juice in the second case does not apply. When the second part gives cottage cheese, the first must be removed from the colander, replacing it with more fresh raw materials, and the first batch at this time just "rest" in a bowl. Ten minutes later, the second batch has already largely got rid of excess moisture, and now two different cheeses can be mixed together.

Due to the presence of carrot juice in only one of the batches, they vary greatly in color. Mixing is done directly in a colander, resulting in a characteristic pattern, and then the mass is given another 20 minutes to drain. After that, almost the finished product is kept under the press for six hours, and finally placed in a refrigerator for settling, pre-drain excess liquid.

Some craftsmen even prepare blue cheese at home, but this will require “exotic” ingredients, which are sold only on the Internet - P. Roqueforti culture, mesophilic starter, rennet, and calcium chloride, which is in any pharmacy. The finished product contains 340 kcal per 100 grams.

Eight liters of milk is heated to a temperature of about 30 degrees, carefully monitoring the temperature with a thermometer. When this temperature is reached, ¼ teaspoon of leaven, described mold culture (literally at the tip of a teaspoon), dissolved in half a glass of water a quarter of a teaspoon of calcium chloride and another ¼ teaspoonful of the enzyme, are added to the liquid.

The first two ingredients can not be mixed - everything is so strict that even spoons for them are taken different. After that, the liquid is thoroughly and unhurriedly mixed with a slotted spoon, and then it is left alone for a couple of hours.

During this time, the milk will thicken, and further organize the serum runoff according to the above scheme, but with the difference that due to the large volume of milk, you need to take care of numerous places for hanging. The resulting curd is pressed for 12 hours, broken into small pieces and salted, and then kept in the refrigerator for two days. Then the cheese is pierced with a wooden stick in order for the mold to gain access to the air, and is kept for two weeks at 10 degrees.

How to make cheese at home, see the next video.