On our recent trip down from Scotland the milk which we had in
the cooler bag turned seriously sour and separated so I thought I'd have a go,
my first ever, at making cheese. I am
very pleased indeed with the results.
Here are some loose instructions ...
How to make cheese ...
~ Warm the milk, together with all its lumps, gently till it separates even more into yellow watery stuff and bigger lumps.
~ Turn off the heat and allow to sit for about 10
minutes.
~ Whilst it is sitting scald a piece of cheesecloth (or similar) with boiling water, to make sure it is uber-hygienic, and wring out. Line a strainer with the cheesecloth and set it over a capacious bowl.
~ Whilst it is sitting scald a piece of cheesecloth (or similar) with boiling water, to make sure it is uber-hygienic, and wring out. Line a strainer with the cheesecloth and set it over a capacious bowl.
~ Pour the mixture into the strainer and leave to drain
for several minutes - there is a surprising amount of liquid, which I threw away
although there is probably something terribly interesting I could have done
with it!
~ After a while carefully lift the edges of the
cheesecloth, tie them together and dangle the whole doo-hickey from a door
handle or something and over a bowl so that it can drip for a while. A gentle squeeze is neither necessary or recommended.
~ When you have a firm-ish lump in the cloth cut it down
and chill it.
I ended up with a block of crumbly fresh cheese - voila
...
I cut off a fifth of the cheese and set it aside
for later. To the rest I added enough
double cream to make a soft cheese and salt and pepper to make a tasty
one. I then divided that into four and
added some flavourings ...
~ Black Garlic - a clove of this lovely stuff chopped and mashed into
the cheese.
~ Heavily
Peppered - just lots of freshly ground peppercorns.
~ Sweet
Chilli - as it name suggests, just the addition of sweet chilli sauce.
~ Fresh
Basil - we have green and purple basil so I added a bit of both.
I'm afraid I can't give quantities here for these;
you'll just have to taste and feel as you go. The first three cheeses I ate for
lunch with crackers and a glass of red, they were all good and the black garlic
was my favourite.
For dinner I had Chorizo and Basil Pizza using the basil
cheese which melted softly as Boursin does and tasted excellent.
You will remember I set aside a fifth of the fresh cheese as
I had a cunning plan; to try making chocolate cheese, inspired by something made by Philadelphia cheese .
I mixed a spoonful each of cocoa powder and
dark brown sugar to a paste with a few drops of hot water and then stirred it
into the cheese a little at a time till it tasted good, which it did. Amazingly I then found that with the addition of either vanilla extract or cognac it tasted even better!
As you can see from the picture it still had a cottage cheese type texture but perhaps it if I had whisked or processed it that would have smoothed out. Instead I just ate it!
As you can see from the picture it still had a cottage cheese type texture but perhaps it if I had whisked or processed it that would have smoothed out. Instead I just ate it!
I have loads more ideas for flavouring fresh cheese; roasted
garlic, lemon and parsley, chilli and orange, and so on. It's almost worth taking some milk for
another long scenic drive or perhaps I'll just buy plain Philly and play with
it!
For more delicious ideas for coping with leftovers see my book, Creative Ways to Use Up Leftovers, in which I give every idea, recipe, handy hint, storage info and more that I can think of for 450 potential leftover foods.
