The following questions often arise for those who make cottage cheese at home for the first time. I will answer them.
1. What kind of milk do you use to make homemade cottage cheese?
Both whole milk and pasteurized or sterilized milk are suitable. Whole milk sours best and fastest. Pasteurized or sterilized a little longer. UHT milk is not suitable because... it is absolutely dead. If it turns sour, it will not be done by the same bacteria that are needed for cottage cheese.
You can take both cow's and goat's milk.
2. Is it necessary to boil milk before putting it to sour?
If you take milk from a healthy cow, from trusted people, then it is not necessary to boil it. You will only need to sterilize the finished cottage cheese.
If you buy whole milk at the market, it is better to bring the milk to a boil and turn it off when the first bubbles appear on the surface.The main thing is not to overheat the milk, otherwise the cottage cheese will turn out tasteless.
3. How long should milk sour?
From 2 to 4 days. You need to wait for the light green water - whey - to leave the milk. The smell should be pleasant, sour milk, without bitterness.
4. What to do with the serum?
Drink and drink again. This is an incredibly healing product! It continues to be healthy and tasty for up to 2 days. From the third day to a week, the whey can be used for cosmetic purposes or for making pancakes, pies, etc.
So, let's start making homemade cottage cheese.
1. Take a can of milk and put it in a warm place. My milk sours well on the table next to the stove.
2. After 2-4 days the milk will sour. A layer of sour cream will appear on top, and greenish transparent whey will appear at the bottom and along the walls of the jar. Some people skim off the sour cream and eat it separately. I give it to the cats. Although it's delicious on its own, I'm not a fan of sour cream. If you leave the sour cream, the cottage cheese will turn out to be fattier, and the final whey will not be transparent, but cloudy white. But that doesn’t make it any less useful.
3. Take a deep pan, put any fabric, for example, a towel on the bottom (so that the jar does not burst). Place the jar of cottage cheese in the pan and add water. It is desirable that the water level reaches the level of the cottage cheese in the jar, but if this does not work out, then at least up to half the jar. Turn on low heat and keep the jar for 30 minutes so that the cottage cheese is sterilized. The water should bubble slightly, but not boil, otherwise the cottage cheese will cook and look like rubber.
3. Remove the jar from the pan. There are two ways to separate the curds from the whey. In any case, we will need gauze approximately 30 by 30 cm, folded in 2-4 layers.
- our grandmothers used the first method.They hung a gauze bag with cottage cheese over the pan, the whey drained off, but the cottage cheese remained. I prefer this method:
- take a regular steamer and put gauze on the top saucepan with holes. Pour the cottage cheese from the jar onto the cheesecloth. The whey will drain into the lower pan, and the curd will remain in the gauze.
4. The serum drains for about 30-40 minutes. Do not speed up the process by squeezing the gauze bag. Under strong pressure, the curd will begin to seep and flow together with the whey. The end result will be less finished product. Let the serum drain on its own. Taste it. It is sour, and most importantly incredibly healthy for the whole body! It is good for washing your face and hair. This is an indispensable product for intimate hygiene. No store-bought gel with lactic acid can replace whey! Especially for women who suffer from thrush.
5. Cottage cheese at home turns out surprisingly tender, juicy and aromatic.
