How to cook Parmesan at home?

Parmesan is one of the varieties of hard cheeses. The product is widely used in cooking for cooking hot meals and snacks, and can also be eaten in its natural form.You can make such cheese at home, and how to do this will be discussed in this article.

Parmesan is known worldwide for its excellent taste characteristics and beneficial properties. Italy is considered its birthplace. The product does not have a homogeneous structure, and the consistency is crumbly, therefore it crumbles when sliced ​​into portions.

Cheese has a pleasant delicate flavor and goes well with both savory products and fruits. In the manufacture of Parmesan on an industrial scale necessarily include the stage of maturation. According to the production technology of Italian cheese, it needs from one to three years of aging for ripening.

The ripening time is reflected in the taste characteristics of the product: the “older” the cheese, the more intense the aroma and taste it will have. Before going on sale, each head of Parmesan cheese is tested for compliance with all quality standards.

It will take quite a lot of time to cook Parmesan at home, as if it were cooked on an industrial scale. Cheese ripens no earlier than ten months, so when making a product in advance, be patient. To get a tasty and high-quality product, it is important to comply with the technology of the production process and the proportions of the components used.

To make cheese at home you need ten liters of cow's milk. The original method of cooking Parmesan involves the use of a natural fresh product. The first five liters of milk are obtained from the evening milk yield, and the second - from the morning. Cream is necessarily separated from the evening milk yield.

In addition to milk, rennet enzyme (such as pepsin) and yogurt sourdough are required. As for rennet, it is better to take the substance in liquid form in the amount of 2.5 milliliters. Starter culture for yogurt will require about one-fourth of a teaspoon, but a more accurate amount is better to look at the packaging of the substance.

Evening and morning milk is poured into a deep container, mixed and put on the stove. The liquid must be heated to a temperature of 33 degrees. Starter culture is poured into warm milk, which is deposited on the surface.

In this state, the mixture is aged for thirty seconds, after which it is well mixed. The resulting composition should be allowed to stand for one hour, while the temperature of the liquid should be 32-33 degrees, so if necessary, the mixture should be heated on the stove.

After an hour, the composition is mixed once more and rennet is introduced into it, the amount of which is best to look at the package. Sometimes it is required to preliminarily dilute the enzyme in water and only then inject it into the milk. The composition must be well stirred and left to brew for a quarter of an hour.

During this time, the mixture will begin to thicken, and after fifteen minutes a dense clot must be cut into small pieces with a long knife. To divide the pieces into small grains, it is necessary to break the mass with the help of a whisk. At the same time, the grain size should not exceed three millimeters.

The resulting composition is necessary with constant stirring to bring on the stove to a temperature of 58 degrees. After heating, the container with the mixture is placed in a large container with cold water to reduce the temperature to 55 degrees. After that, the composition must be continuously stirred for about ten minutes. After a specified time, the grain should become the desired consistency, and when squeezed, it will form a dense homogeneous mass.

The composition must be transferred to the gauze and let drain the serum. Serum is brought on a plate to a temperature of 57 degrees and placed in it a dense curd, rolled up in gauze. Cheese should be in serum for an hour, while the temperature of the liquid must be constantly checked and maintained at 55-57 degrees.

After the cheese mass has lain in the whey for an hour, it must be shifted into a special form. It should be ensured that the structure of the cheese was uniform, without any folds and irregularities. Having placed the product in a container, he needs to give a flat shape with his hands and cover with a special circle or lid on top.

It is necessary to put a 4.5 kg weight on the cheese and leave it under it for twenty minutes. During this time, the serum will be separated and drained from the product. After the time has passed, the curd mass will need to be turned over and a load of 10 kilograms weigh on it. Under such pressure cheese is kept for forty minutes. At the twentieth minute, you must turn the curd and put it back under the press.

Then the product is released from the load, taken out of gauze and again placed under a ten-kilogram press, but for 10 hours already. It is important to observe the temperature in the room where there will be cheese: the air temperature should be about 18-24 degrees. This mode allows you to get the product of the desired acidity.

Ten hours later, the load must be removed, and the cheese mass placed in a normal food container and left for 35 hours at the same temperature.

The final stage of Parmesan cooking is salting and ripening. For brine, it is necessary to dilute one kilogram of salt in four liters of hot boiled water. After preparing the solution, it must be cooled, and then the cheese is placed in it.

One part of the curd is soaked for six hours, after which Parmesan is turned over and placed in the brine with the other side also for six hours.

When soaking cheese should follow a number of rules.

• The temperature of the salt solution should be in the range of 10-13 degrees.
• A piece of cheese that is on top of the pickle should be sprinkled with one small spoonful of salt.
• After soaking, the product should dry completely. To do this, the cheese is kept on a special grid for two days at a temperature of 10-13 degrees. Periodically, Parmesan must be turned over.

Then the cheese is sent to ripen in a room with suitable conditions. The level of humidity in the room should not exceed 85%, and the air temperature should be in the range of 10-14 degrees. The term of ripening Parmesan is exactly one year, after which it will be possible to eat it.

You will learn more about how to make Parmesan cheese in the following video.