Cheese Making Recipe.com
It is a popular option as table cheese, and is a favored ingredient in making salads, in baking and pastries. The traditional Greek salad is considered to be incomplete with a few small-cut cubes of their indigenous feta cheese.
Feta cheese is usually white in color, with a tangy and salty flavor and a hardness that can range from soft to semi-hard. Due to its higher humidity, soft feta is rich in aroma sweeter, less spicy and less salty. The hard feta is saltier and spicier, and has a stronger flavor and odor.
The cheese crumbles easily, and has a high fat content, which can be up to 60 per cent. It is a preferred cheese for people averse or allergic to cow’s milk. Prepared by salting and curing the cheese in a brine solution (based on water or whey), it dries out quickly when it is removed from the brine. Feta cheese takes about two months to mature. It is a solid mass cheese which has no rind with a few uneven holes.
The earliest record of feta cheese dates back to the Byzantine Empire. It has bgeen associated closely with Crete, located in present day Greece. An Italian traveler to the city of Candia makes express mention of the curing processes in brine cellars in his writings dated 1494.
The word "feta" has an interesting genealogy. It comes from the Italian word fetta (meaning slice). Fetta, in turn, is of Latin origin from offa (meaning bite or morsel). It first appeared in Greek language in the 17th century, possibly referring to the process of serving the cheese by cutting it in thin slices. Many, however, attribute a Classical Greek origin to feta cheese. According to myth, the Cyclops Polyfimos was the first to have prepared it. In the museum of Delphi, 6th century BC artifacts also make references to the process of feta cheese-making.
Like the world-famous Camembert cheese, feta cheese in 2005 also managed to secure a “protected designation of origin” in the European Union, and it defined as having a minimum of 70% sheep's milk, with the rest being goat’s milk. Greece had to fight a protracted legal battle to secure the same, as a variety of pasteurized cow’s milk cheese was in circulation in Denmark under the same name.
Varieties to the Greek feta cheese are to be found in many of the Balkan countries as well as the Mediterranean region. While the indigenous varieties are called ‘feta’ in some countries, it is not necessarily the same everywhere. Feta cheese is also a known cure for bouts of food poisoning. Amongst its nutritional benefits, one can count on its high Calcium and Vitamin A count.
How to make Homemade Feta Cheese
Making Recipe
Ingredients for feta cheese recipe:
- 1 gallon fresh goats milk
- (cows milk may work as well)
- 1 tablespoon fresh yogurt
- 1/2 tablespoon of rennet
- -1+ gallon pot (must have lid)
How to make feta recipe:
You can contact us on the Contact button or just click the link text. To see some info on Camembert with the recipe Blue Cheese, Duch Gouta, Camembert,Swiss, Rennet, Mozzarella Cheese, Goat Cheese or to go back to the Home page. Hoop Cheese Recipe
New site it may help some get started to make money online
© Copying 2008-2010 All Rights Reserved Content & Photos By www.cheesemakingrecipe.com Joyann Mast
Feta cheese is a Greek specialty and its origin goes back a long way in history, and is counted the oldest cheeses in the world.
An aged brined curd cheese, Feta is usually made from ewe’s or goat’s milk—though goat’s milk has also been used since recent times.
Usually formed in square-shaped blocks, feta cheese is known to have a somewhat grainy consistency.
- Check for a clean break of the curds in the morning , overnight the milk should have gelled.
- Start cutting the curds on one side right down to the bottom. Continue this until all the curds are ½ inch by ½ inch.
- With a sanitized hand lift the curds from the bottom and cutting those that were missed.
- Allow the curds to sit and stir once in a while over the period of 10 to 20 minutes or until the curds are somewhat contracted.
- Drain off the whey through handkerchiefs pouring the curds into the handkerchiefs. Save the whey for later.
- leave the curds drain till no more whey comes out
- place all the curds in a bowl and add salt
- line your cheese press with your handkerchief and place your curds inside your cheese press and place a weight overtop and let sit overnight
- take the whey from before and 5 tablespoons of salt and stir till dissolved
- take the cheese and cut into cubes and put in a wide mouth jar, let the cheese ”pickle” for a couple of days
- keep in the fridge until use, when ready to use rinse to take excess salt
Feta cheese was first made in Greece and can be used in salads and pizza and almost everything
How to Make Homemade Feta Cheese Making Recipe
Warm the milk to 30C and stir to prevent the milk from sticking to the bottom.
- Add the yogurt to the milk and remove from heat , mix in the yogurt and let sit for one hour at room temperature.
- While the milk sits, mix the rennet in 1 cup of water till dissolved.
- Mix the rennet mixture into the milk after it has sat for one hour, mix completely and thoroughly.
- Let the new milk mixture sit overnight at the room temperature.
{Ad}
