Cheese Making

Matt's main present from me was a cheesemaking starter kit. It provided everything that you need to make soft cheese including starters for curd cheese, soft cheese and mozarella (which I am VERY excited about!).

For his first attempt Matt made a basic lemon cheese, which doesn't actually use the kit but is a great way to get to grips with the basic process.

To do this you need:

1 litre of milk
Juice of 2 lemons
Salt

1. Heat the milk to 38 degrees C



2. Add the juice of two lemons to make it curdle



3. Leave for half an hour



4. Strain through cheese cloth, keeping the curds (solid bit) and rinsing out the whey



5. Salt to taste

6. Eat the cheese! This first attempt cheese as a really interesting flavour - tart and lemony and quite salty (Matt likes things more salty than I do!)

We haven't eaten it all yet but Matt made some pasta and made some ravioli just to test it.



I think it would be nice in ravioli with some sundried toms so that mght be a job for today. This is also very similar to how you make the Indian cheese paneer, which I absolutely love, so that's Matt's next job!