Homemade cottage cheese is the most delicious, because it is always fresh and natural. You can prepare it in different ways. The quality of milk depends on the final result. Someone likes fat cottage cheese, with an oily structure, and someone likes a dietary product, with a small amount of fat and sourish taste.
How to cook cottage cheese for every taste - in detail in the recipes.
Step-by-step recipes for homemade cottage cheese made from milk - basic technological principles
Cottage cheese is obtained from natural (whole) milk. As you know, milk contains natural milk protein - casein. At a temperature of 10-12 ° C, the milk matures within 12-15 hours. During this time, the protein structure changes, the process of natural fermentation begins.
Then the milk is heated. There is a separation of serum and the formation of a clot: under the influence of temperature, casein fibers fold (contract), pushing fluid (serum) out of the cells. Under production conditions, this process is called pasteurization. It occurs at 63-65 ° C for 20 minutes. As the temperature rises, the pasteurization time is shortened.
In fact, the coagulation of milk occurs at a lower temperature - 40-45 ° C, but in dairy plants, where huge volumes of dairy raw materials collected from different farms are processed, the temperature of pasteurization is increased due to sanitary standards. When there is absolute confidence in the observance of sanitary standards during milking, in the sterility of the dishes and the satisfactory maintenance of the animal, you can simply warm up the homemade milk before the separation of the whey, and then remove it from the stove and allow it to stand until completely cooled.
There is a pattern: the higher the temperature of pasteurization of milk, the worse the quality of the curd. That is why sour boiled milk never forms a normal clot, although, again, under production conditions, soft cheeses are obtained from milk processed by high-temperature pasteurization. But for this there are special technologies. For homemade cottage cheese, you can use some industrial secrets. Some of the details of industrial technology for making homemade curd from milk are in step-by-step recipes and helpful tips.
Step-by-step recipe for homemade cottage cheese from fresh milk
Ingredients:
Homemade milk 3.5 liters (1 bottle)
Sourdough - the amount depends on the type of fermented milk product or enzyme
Calcium chloride 5% 5 mg (1 ampoule)
Preparation:
1. The first stage is the normalization of milk. Of course, it is difficult to get milk of necessary fat content using home methods, but it is possible to adjust the process approximately. The main thing is that milk should be whole. Fat affects taste and texture. The industry produces low-fat cottage cheese, with fat content of 9% and 18%. Choose your option and skim the cream as necessary.
2. Pour the milk into the pan and heat to 35-40 ° C.
3. Enter the leaven into the warm milk and mix for 5-7 minutes. Leave the pot at room temperature. Simultaneously add calcium chloride to speed up the coagulation of milk.
Usually, souring of milk without fermentation occurs within 7-8 hours. During this time, increasing acidity, the product is enriched with lactic acid bacteria, acquires a characteristic taste. This is an acidic method of cooking homemade curd. He is more natural.
Adding sour cream and other dairy products speeds up the process 2 times. Sour cream, yogurt, whey or sour milk - this is the most optimal way of souring milk at home - these products will be found in every home. Only one prerequisite: fermented milk products must be prepared by thermostatic method, from whole milk.
If desired, replace dairy products with pepsin or other enzymes. This is the second, acid-rennet method of making homemade cottage cheese from milk, which can be applied by replacing sour cream with the enzyme in the second step-by-step recipe paragraph. 4. When a clot appears, place the pot on the stove and warm the raw material again, stirring at a temperature of no more than 40-42 ° C. With strong heating the quality of the curd will deteriorate. Fat and calcium in this will go into the serum, and the cheese clot will noticeably decrease in volume, will become dry. However, this option is also acceptable, but he is an amateur.
5. Break the dense clot into small fractions to accelerate the separation of the liquid.
6. Place a sieve or colander on a tray, the capacity of which should be at least 3.5 liters, so that the whey does not overflow over the edge of the dish. Cover the sieve with gauze folded in four layers and carefully, gradually pour the fermented milk.
7. When the main whey volume is drained, tie the ends of the gauze napkin and hang it over the pan for a while to seal the cheese bunch and remove excess moisture from the product.
From the specified amount of homemade milk, you can get 350 - 400 g of fresh cottage cheese.
Step-by-step recipe for homemade cottage cheese from sour milk
Ingredient:
Homemade yogurt
It happens that milk is already sour, and it must be “put into action.” If the product has not been boiled, then it is quite suitable for making homemade curd. For this milk does not require any special additives.
Cooking:
1. Sour milk must be heated. When the temperature rises to 40 ° C, the milk protein coagulates. All this has already been described above, in the basic technological principles for obtaining cottage cheese from milk.
2. The next step is the separation of serum. Also, as in the first step-by-step recipe, set a strainer on a pan of suitable size, and pour the warmed yogurt through the gauze layer.
3. Let the whey drip to the required moisture level of the curd. You can leave the cottage cheese in this position, and to speed up the process of separation of whey hang it in gauze.
Step-by-step recipe for homemade cottage cheese made from milk (with lemon juice)
This is a step-by-step recipe for cooking “paneer”, Indian cottage cheese made from milk. Indians use sour fruit juice to coagulate casein - homemade rennet cheese with a delicate flavor and a dense texture is obtained. This cheese is not salty, like cheese or feta, so it looks more like cottage cheese.
Ingredients:
Milk 6 L
Lemon juice 100 ml
Preparation:
1. Heat homemade milk to 40-50 ° C.
2. Squeeze the juice from fresh lemon.
3. Pour it in a thin stream at the edge of the pot on the stove, while stirring the milk in one direction.
4. Do not stop stirring until a tight clot forms.
5. Allow the mass to cool, and strain through a gauze layer laid on a colander. You can shift the clot in gauze using skimmers.
6. Roll the edges of the gauze to the center. Place a plate on the cheese mass and a jar filled with water on it. Cottage cheese should be pressed.
7. Transfer the finished head to a tight-fitting container. Store in the refrigerator for ripening for 10-12 hours. Paneer when serving cut into pieces. It is very good for making salads and desserts, as a filling for dumplings and pies.
At the stage of heating the milk, you can add herbs and spices to get an original snack. Hot pepper, garlic, ground coriander, cardamom, mint will do.
Step-by-step recipes for homemade cottage cheese made from milk - tips and secrets
Not every housewife has a lactometer to determine the fat content of milk. There is a solution: you can approximately set the percentage of fat content by volume. For example: in a bottle - 3 liters of milk. Put it in the refrigerator overnight. By morning, the fat will rise up, as its molecules are lighter and larger than liquid. Oily mass has a slightly creamy tint, and it differs in color from white milk. It remains to measure the amount of fat mass and determine the percentage ratio of milk and fat. If the bottle, with a volume of 3 liters, the third part - a fat “vershok”, the milk has a fat content of about 10%. This is a good indicator of the quality of milk. Home-made cow's milk has the highest fat content in the cold season, when animals are transferred to winter housing. In such milk, fat content reaches 12%. If you need to cook low-fat cottage cheese, put the milk in the refrigerator for 7-8 hours, then remove the cream - the cheese raw material is ready.
To speed up the coagulation of milk protein, add calcium chloride to raw milk. This additive is used in the dairy industry. It allows you to increase the amount of curd, enriches dairy products with calcium, which is converted into whey during pasteurization of milk. Calcium chloride is a cheap drug that is dispensed in any pharmacy without prescriptions. 0.5 ml of a 5% solution is sufficient per liter of milk. This is literally, 2-3 drops of the solution. Chloride is an absolutely harmless drug, but you should not abuse it. As the great healer said, medicine differs from poison only by dosage.
Goat milk is a very valuable and dietary product. It contains less fat than cow's milk, but coagulability in goat milk is lower due to the peculiarities of the structure of milk protein. Quality home-made cottage cheese from goat milk can be obtained only with the use of acid-rennet souring method.
The dairy industry produces cottage cheese made from reconstituted (dry) milk, skim milk, but these methods for home-made cottage cheese are complex and require the use of special household appliances and appliances.
