mountain of spices: Do Try This At Home: Home Made Cheese

Following the last post on using our new Cheese Making kit, I'm offering up this test recipe for fresh home made cheese. It's a fairly simple recipe and it helps me meet my quota - at this point long over-due - of writing recipes that use my spice & seasoning blends.

Here is the recipe as posted on The New England Cheese Making Supply Company.

Queso Blanco

Ingredients:

1 gallon of milk
1/4 cup of vinegar (this may be cider, grain, or herbal vinegar.)

Heat the milk to 195 degrees F. Stirring often to keep from scorching. When the milk is at 195 degrees F., stir in the vinegar Turn the heat off and let the hot milk set for 5 minutes. The milk will quickly coagulate into curds (solid white) and whey (a clear green liquid.)

Line a colander with fine cheesecloth and pour the curds and whey into the colander. Hang the bag of curd to drain for one hour or until it reaches your desired consistency. Remove the cheese from the cloth. It will be a solid mass of curd and may be wrapped in plastic wrap and stored in the refrigerator until ready for use. One gallon of milk will produce up to 1.5 lbs of cheese.

Queso Blanco may be cut into 1/2 inch cubes and used in a variety of dishes. It is uniquely suited for cooking because it will not melt. In fact, it is the only cheese which can be deep fried without melting. Added to such dishes as spaghetti, soup or Chinese stir fried vegetables, the cheese will take on the flavor of the surrounding food. By itself the cheese has a very mild and distinctly sweet taste.

I followed the recipe as written above, except I made some changes. To start with, I used fresh raw milk, for the vinegar I used 1/4 cup of pear infused balsamic vinegar that we have on hand. While cooking it I added:

1 - 1 2/2 tablespoons salt (as mentioned, the cheese needs salt!)
1 - 2 tablespoons green thai spice blend
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
1 teaspoon urfa pepper

That's it. It takes about half an hour to make and is ready to eat as soon as it is drained, but you may want to wait a while. We found that draining the whey so that it is firm gives it a better consistency for eating, and that chilled cheese is preferable over warm cheese.

Bon appétit!