From the moment I ate my first hunk of mediocre store-bought feta, I was hooked on this tangy, salty cheese. So you can imagine that once I tasted small-batch feta from a local farmer, I was sold for life. It’s one of my favorite additions to salads and is great in omelets or atop pizza.
I also recently discovered, in my quest to find cheeses easy enough that even I can make them, that feta is another fairly simple cheese that can be made at home using raw milk. Once I found that out, I decided to move past yogurt, kefir, and chevre and give this personal favorite a try. It really is easy and our whole family is really excited about the results, so much so that I think it will become a regular staple so long as we have milk.
Here are the photos to prove that if I can make it, anyone can… it really is that simple and tasty.
To get started, all you need is the feta cheese culture, rennet, and milk. I used a gallon of raw goat milk.
After heating the milk briefly until it hit 86 degrees, I sprinkled over the feta cheese culture, which has an orange hue to it. Then I whisked it in and let it sit for an hour.
Next I added rennet. The recipe in the culture calls for ½ teaspoon so I diluted that in ¼ cup filtered water and gently mixed it in. Then I covered the pot and let it sit on my counter for hours.
After 6-8 hours I checked and noticed the curd separating from the whey. I put the lid back on the pot and let it sit for about six more hours.
That night, after the children were safely tucked in, I cut the curd into 1/2″ pieces. This is very approximate. Then I stirred the curds off and on for 20 minutes while piddling around in the kitchen with other things. I rebooted my water kefir, washed the milking pail, and helped my husband chase a stray pig out of our yard, all between stirring the curd about a half a dozen times.
I then scooped the curd into the Greek Yogurt Strainer. I really like this guy a lot more than butter muslin, for cleaning purposes. It holds exactly the amount of curd I have when making cheese from a gallon of milk. One tip I have is to pour boiling water from a tea kettle over it just before adding the curd. This kills off any stray yeasts that might infest your cheese while it is straining.
I left the curds to drain overnight, though the recipe says four hours will do the trick. In the morning they were firm enough to remove from the strainer, though still a little softer than what finished feta might look like.
So I put it into a tupperware container to age for a few days. I find that after 3-5 days the feta is firmer in texture and has a more pronounced feta flavor.
This batch, which I made last week, is delicious. It is dry and crumbly, like feta, though I didn’t brine it. I find the curd just a bit too soft to brine so I may do some troubleshooting to firm it up a bit after the initial draining period.
Overall, I find this cheese super easy to make and really tasty when salted generously for that distinctive tangy-salty feta flavor.
Have you tried making feta?
from Cultures for Health Blog http://ift.tt/1QxdYEl
via The Shining Mind
from Tumblr http://ift.tt/1HJGFqs
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