Most people love cheese, preferring its use not only during the morning breakfast, but also in other dishes, both cold and hot. After all, cheese is a unique product – nourishing, tasty, healthy and easy to digest.
But, to find in the trading networks of cheese, suitable to eat for vegetarians, quite difficult, in almost all varieties of cheese, in the manufacture, added enzymes of animal origin.
You should not give up your favorite product, there is always a way out.
Therefore, today, we offer you a step by step recipe for making cream cheese at home, without chemicals, without animal enzymes, without preservatives.
Cooked with your own hands curd cheese at home, guarantees not only the quality of the product, but also its excellent taste. Everyone whom you treat with your culinary product will feel love and care. There is no doubt that everyone will appreciate such a dish, because you have to put a lot of effort into its preparation.
And do not be afraid of difficulties, to prepare cream cheese at home with a step-by-step recipe, which we present to you, is not difficult at all. Even at home it is possible to make “hard cheese”. The main thing is that all the necessary products for making cheese, you have on hand.
Homemade cream cheese is a caloric product, about 350 kcal.
100 grams of hard cheese contains:
Protein – 26.0 mg;
Fats – 26.0 mg;
Carbohydrates – 3.5 mg;
And a lot of vitamins B, A, E, PP, indispensable macro-and micronutrients – iron, potassium, calcium, magnesium, sodium, phosphorus, and a whole complex of amino acids.
Cream cheese at home: cooking recipe and ingredients
Ingredients:
Fat milk (not canned) – 1 liter;
Natural dried cottage cheese 0% or 5% – 1 kilogram;
Butter – 250 grams;
Sea salt – 1 teaspoon (with a small slide);
Drinking soda – 1 teaspoon (with a small slide).
Preparation:
Before you begin cooking, pay attention to important explanations:
To make cheese, cottage cheese should be natural, as dry as possible, on these qualities of cottage cheese depends on the hardness of the cheese.
Next, the utensils for making cheese – in no case do not use cookware with non-stick coating – the curd turns into a shapeless mass, far from the look of cheese. In the enamel cookware cheese of course turns out, but very strong burns the bottom, to wash dishes is very problematic, and the cheese absorbs the smell of burning. The best option – to make cottage cheese in a metal pot with double bottom (5 liters) – the bottom will be a little browned curd mass, but then it is easy to wash off if you let the pan stand with water.
In the beginning, until you gain the necessary experience and a good result, try to make cheese, reducing the ingredients in the proposed recipe, ie, the amount of each ingredient divided by 4 and take 1/4. The pan, respectively, is enough for 1.5 – 2 liters.
So, the preparation of homemade cream cheese
In a saucepan we pour the milk and put it on the heat, but without bringing it to a boil. Once the pan is hot, and from the milk went steaming, add the cottage cheese in the pan and quickly knead it with a slotted spoon so that there were no large lumps (small ones are allowed).
As soon as the milk has turned into whey, the pan is removed from the stove without bringing it to a boil – this is very important.
We cover a colander with a triple layer of clean gauze, so that the edges of the gauze hang down from the colander and put it in another pan / bowl (which is more convenient), but the container must be chosen so that the colander is on the weight, not standing on the bottom.
Next, gently, slowly drain the whey through the colander, then lastly pour out the cottage cheese.
Leave the curd for two or three hours in a colander to drain off the whey, covering it with the edges of gauze. Episodically, with a slotted spatula we press lightly on the curd cube, helping the whey to drain out. We take the cube by the edges of the gauze and squeeze the curd with his hands. The more whey flows out, the harder the cheese will be.
While the cottage cheese drains from the excess moisture, prepare a mold for cheese – it can be a round bowl with high edges (diameter 20 cm and height of 8 cm) – smear it with vegetable unrefined oil, it will give the cheese a special flavor.
Once again, squeeze the cottage cheese, gently grasping the edges of the gauze and twisting it into a cube.
So, the cottage cheese has drained, became dense.
To make the cheese turned out beautiful, cottage cheese can be twisted through a meat grinder, then its texture will be more uniform. If you do not twist the cottage cheese, then the cheese in the finished state will get a marbled color, which also looks attractive and appetizing.
We move the cottage cheese into a saucepan with milk, add butter, salt, soda, stir until smooth and begin to heat at a low temperature, (do not make a strong heat, otherwise the cottage cheese will immediately begin to stick).
You start to knead the mass right away, don’t move from the pan for a second – knead all the time. The cottage cheese gradually begins to take on a yellowish color, its texture changes and begins to resemble a mass of cheese. Knead while heating for about ten minutes, until the texture of the mass is close to a homogeneous mass. Why about ten minutes? All hostesses have different stoves with different temperature settings, so you need to watch the cheese mass and as soon as it starts to turn from white curd into a mass with a light, amber hue, the cheese billet is ready.
The hot mass very quickly put into a cheese mold. We do this very quickly, because the cheese immediately begins to solidify. Leave the form with cheese to cool and harden for 6 – 8 hours on the kitchen table at room temperature, but not in the refrigerator. It is necessary for the cheese to cool naturally, without a sudden change in temperature.
Next, passing around the edges of the form with a sharp knife, lay out the cheese on a dish.
Your delicious, healthy, homemade cheese is ready.
Have a nice meal, friends!
