Cheesy new year resolutions

Well, we made it through 2022. People pronounce it as if it was the worst year ever. But it was not all that bad for me. It was more like Carol reminded me: Doing the work required to set up 2023 as a great year.

I hope your 2023 also turns out to be a “you know, it was actually not a bad year, not bad at all”.

And with that in mind, I shall start the new year with good intentions. Back to regular blogging, and soon to expand to vlogging as soon as I can work out the technology.

Today’s blog may have started as a bit of rhetoric, but I promise to have some practical concepts in each post. (That does not auger well, can a “concept” be practical?)

Having tasted Susan’s goats’ cheese last night, it reminds me that I never posted my “How to make feta” blog. The easiest cheese to make is paneer (fantastic in a curry), but feta is not too difficult either.

Start with a happy cow.

Generally, the 12 eggs I barter with the neighbour, brings me about 1,5 litres of milk to play with.

My cheese making booklet says to use a wide rather than deep pot, but this pot works perfectly well. You need to bring the temperature just below body temperature, at 32 degrees Celsius.

Please take care with this step, because there is no way you can disguise the taste of burnt milk. Unless you use truffle salt (thanks Neil!), which you can try and tell your audience gives the cheese a Smokey flavour.

This handy gadget (thanks Brian!) is especially useful to diffuse the heat down to “simmer temperature.”

Addition number 1: Once you have reached the desired 32 degrees, add a teaspoon tip of Flora Danica culture. The milk must not be too hot, because then the culture does not “cult.”

Wait number 1: Let it stand for 30 minutes, keeping the temperature at around 32 degrees. That is quite hard to do on top of the stove, but I have found that putting the pot in a vessel with hot water keeps the temperature stable for longer without risking boiling the milk.

Addition number 2: After the 30 minutes add 5 drops calcium chloride, stir.

Addition number 3: Bring the temperature back to 32 degrees, dilute 8 (eight) drops rennet in a little bit if water, which you then add to the warm milk. Stir well.

Finest Kind: Cheese kits, Yoghurt and Cheese making equipment and ingredientshttps://www.finestkind.co.za/

Wait number 2: Now you can take the time to do other things, like tidy the house, stain a cement floor, finish making a stuffed octopus etc. You have at least 45 to 60 minutes. Do not worry if your intermediary task takes longer than that. Here the pot in a warm bath works very well to keep the temperature at 38 to 40 degrees. The outcome of this interlude should be a soft jelly like set consistency.

It is no longer called milk; it is called curd. You may see a clearer liquid, which is called the whey, which will be disregarded for now. We have a separate purpose for the whey.

Cut the curd into blocks, which you gently stir to loosen up, but not break.

Wait number 3:  let the curds rest for 1-2 hours, at a consistent 30 degrees. (Remember the water bath tip). Once the volume of whey matches the volume of curd, you can move to straining.

Wait number 4: Drain the cheese for 12-48 hours, through a pasta strainer lined with a muslin cloth. Save the whey for later use.

You should turn the cheese 3 times during this waiting period. Outcome? The cheese must wait until it reaches a pH of 4.8. Which may take quite some time, but it is important, because the cheese will “melt” in the brine if it is less than 4.8.

We all know the salty nature of Feta – it comes from the brine, which is a 10% solution (100g salt and 15ml Calcium Chloride per liter of water). Brine must be a lower pH, which you should target to get down 4.4 by adding pinches of citric acid. Make enough brine but manage the salt. The saltiness of the cheese is the part I struggle the most with.

Wait number 5: Do not worry, this is the last wait. The cheese must mature in a cool environment (10-14 degrees) for 1-3 months. I use a repurposed wine fridge as my maturation chamber.

What ifs:

• If the cheese is too salty, do not worry. It works very well in a Spanakopita (Greek spinach pie).
• If you forget about the cheese, do not worry. The edges may become a little softer, but it is still edible, although I do it in some cooked format then.
• If you do not have pH measuring sticks, do not worry. I use a pool pH measuring kit (with a fair degree of judgement in reading the numbers).

But that is too many words, and the list if WhatIffs is too long. Just try it. Worst case scenario, it is a fun experiment with only a small cash investment.