Ossetian rennet cheese. Ossetian cheese

Many people like light oriental dishes and snacks, especially when it comes to dairy products, but they are not always available in a good quality store. Today we will tell you how to make Ossetian cheese at home, so that it not only does not differ from the purchased one, but even tastes better! Indeed, it is in our power to add only the necessary healthy ingredients, and preparing this wonderful product will not be difficult even for a beginner cheese maker.

Ossetian cheese is a wonderful national dish, widely known outside of its own country due to its excellent taste. Salty, with a piquant sourness, it makes the cheese indispensable in fillings for pies and other pastries.

He is good on his own. Dense, but brittle texture makes it a bit like homemade cottage cheese. In addition, Ossetian cheese is useful due to its mineral composition.

What you need to make cheese

We will take care of acquiring everything you need in advance, because not all products and equipment can be found in an ordinary kitchen.

Milk

If we take raw unpasteurized milk in order to get a richer deep taste, then we should focus only on trusted suppliers.

Since we will not boil milk, any pathogens will remain in it, so if you are not completely sure, it is better to use pasteurized store-bought milk. The main thing is to take a product with a fat content of at least 3.5, and preferably 4%.

Yogurt

We use only natural without sweet additives. Yogurt is needed instead of sourdough. Also suitable, kefir, yogurt or sour cream. Add starter from the ratio of 5-10% of the total volume of milk.

Pepsin

This enzyme will allow the milk to acquire the desired consistency. May be of animal or vegetable origin. It is easy to buy it in a pharmacy or on specialized sites.

If taken in tablets, add it at the rate of 1 pc. for 1 liter of milk.

Thermometer

It is necessary so that we know exactly at what point to add this or that ingredient. It is this precision that will make high-quality cheese.

Well, now that everything is at hand, let's try to cook it at home according to a proven simple recipe?

Ossetian cheese at home

Ingredients

— 3 l + -
- 2 tsp + -
Pepsin - 3 tablets + -
Kefir - 50 ml + -

How to make cheese at home

We put the milk in a water bath in another saucepan or use a fire divider - this way the heating will be carried out evenly.
We put a thermometer and heat up to 32 ° C.
Add kefir and stir.
Leave for half an hour to start the fermentation process. We turn off the fire.
In boiled water at room temperature, dilute pepsin until dissolved, and after a while, pour it into milk. Mix again for even distribution and leave for 1-2 hours.
Milk must be fermented.
It is easy to determine whether it worked out - we try the surface: if it springs when pressed, then you can proceed to the next step.
If not yet, then let stand for another 15-20 minutes.
When everything is ready, cut the resulting mass into cubes with a long knife. We do this in all directions so that the pieces float freely in the whey - this will help it move away better.
We leave for 10-15 minutes for the final separation, but not longer so that the cheese does not stand still.
Next, put the pan back into the water bath and heat the contents to 35-38 ° C so that the cheese mass becomes denser and heavier. It is not worth raising the temperature above, otherwise the cheese will become rubbery.

Then, with a slotted spoon or directly with your hands, put the cheese grain into a colander or a special form with holes. We tamp it down properly and leave it for 2 hours, substituting something under the bottom, as the serum will continue to drain.

After the lapse of time, salt the cheese from the surface - for this we rub the barrel with fine salt. Turn over and rub salt again. Let it stand in the refrigerator for another 1-1.5 hours.

And that's it - amazing Ossetian cheese at home is ready! Enjoy your meal! You can eat it right there, or you can let it ripen. The real depth of taste is achieved after 3-5 days.

Secrets of spicy Ossetian cheese

As you can see, there is nothing difficult to prepare, but how to make it more piquant and interesting?

Herbs

We can use the dried herb mix as we see fit. Suitable Provencal, chopped parsley, dill, cilantro, basil, cumin, coriander and paprika.

Sprinkle them thickly on the head simultaneously with salt on both sides.

Then, when the cheese is completely dry, after 1-2 hours, wrap it in paper and store for at least 3 days. This time is enough for the head to be properly soaked.

Brine

We prepare it at the rate of 1 tbsp. salt per liter of liquid. You can use the whey left over from making the cheese. It will add additional piquancy and aroma.

We filter it through several layers of gauze, heat it up to 40 ° C, add salt until completely dissolved, and when the cheese dries and rests, about 4-5 hours after cooking, lower it into it.

How to store homemade Ossetian cheese

You can store Ossetian cheese in the refrigerator for several weeks, wrapped in parchment paper, but it is unlikely that it will last that long! But it will be possible to feast on them in 2-3 days.

During this time, the taste will become salty, and the texture will become denser and more elastic.

Now, friends, you know how to make Ossetian cheese at home so that it is no worse than what is made in its homeland, in sunny Ossetia. We add it to pies, khachapuri or enjoy it just like that, putting it on a crispy crust in the morning.

Not only Ossetians can cook Ossetian cheese at home. Oh, and how delicious it turns out - the mind can be eaten away.

Homemade urban version of pickled cheese, as it is commonly called, includes whole "village" milk and rennet, plus, of course, salt. The times when cheese was prepared strictly on milk with the addition of whey from the dried stomach of cattle are far in the past. In the present, starter cheese enzymes (pepsins) used to make real Ossetian cheese are already full.

Products are taken from the list. True, which pepsin enzyme you will use is not at all important. Any one you can get. Cow's or goat's milk is whole milk with a high fat content.

Determine the milk in a large, at least 5 liters, container so as not to spill this useful product. Preheat to 37°C.

Dilute the rennet in a small amount of warm water. Add it to warm milk and stir. After that, cover the container with milk with a lid and leave it warm for 30-40 minutes. High-quality milk, plus a good starter - the milk will curdle faster. In a cool room, the curdling time of milk increases.

Milk that has turned into a jelly mass must be immediately put into operation.

Prepare gauze material, iron it well and roll it into three layers. Cover a colander or large sieve with cheesecloth. Scrape the "jelly" with a slotted spoon onto cheesecloth set over a colander.

Allow the liquid to drain, then tie the gauze tightly into a knot. Hang over a container where excess whey will drain. Or set under the press.

After three hours, remove the Ossetian cheese from gauze and sprinkle well with salt. Ossetian cheese is ready for pies!

If you want to use pickled Ossetian cheese, do not drain the whey, but salt it well. Store the product in salty whey until you eat it. Pickled cheese is good for salads and sandwiches.

Home-made soft rennet cheese, reminiscent of brynza, is indispensable for national pies.

If you have fresh morning milk, then by all means use it for a good deed - make homemade cheese according to our recipe.

Ossetian cheese belongs to pickled cheeses. It is from it that delicious Ossetian pies are baked.

The preparation of soft young Ossetian cheese is in many ways similar to the preparation of feta cheese. The most delicious Ossetian pies are made from cheese, which is 1-2 days old.

For sourdough milk, abomasum is used - a part of the stomach of animals salted in a special way. In urban conditions, ready-made rennet enzymes in the form of tablets are used for this - Acidin-pepsin, or pepsin in the form of a powder. In America they use Rennet tablets. For Ossetian cheese, as well as for other types of cheese, homemade proven milk is used. You must be sure of the quality of the milk, because there is no heat treatment with milk as such. From the purchased for the recipe, pasteurized milk is suitable.

Homemade Ossetian cheese, recipe

Milk - 6 liters (homemade or pasteurized);
Acedin-pepsin tablets - 2 tablets per 1 liter of water or Pepsin powder - at the tip of a knife for 6 liters of milk;
Natural yogurt or sour cream for sourdough milk (if the milk is not homemade, but pasteurized) - 500 grams;
Salt - a little.

Homemade Ossetian cheese, preparation:

Pour milk into a saucepan and heat to 32-37 degrees.
Ferment non-homemade milk with sour cream or yogurt and wait 20 minutes;
In a small amount of milk (in a cup), dissolve the tablets or powder - the milk will immediately curdle.
Pour into a saucepan, stir and cover with a lid. Leave in a warm place for an hour and most importantly - do not touch it (important!).
During this time, the milk will become like jelly and whey will separate.
In a cool place, this time can be extended up to 2 hours.
We cut the clot with a knife into squares 2-3 cm in size in a saucepan.
Leave for another 20 minutes - the clot will sink to the bottom, the serum on top.
Line a colander with gauze in 2-3 layers and put a clot into it with a slotted spoon or with your hands.
Strain the remaining whey - it is useful for pancakes, pancakes and okroshka.
Tie the gauze and shape the cheese.
Put a small load and immediately put it in the cold for 2 hours.
After 2 hours, salt the cheese on the sides - the young homemade cheese is ready.
If you are going to store it, make a strong brine and dip the cheese into it.

Homemade Ossetian cheese is ready. Yield - 1.2-1.4 kg (depending on the quality of milk). Enjoy your meal!

Cooking

To prepare tasty and healthy Ossetian cheese at home, stock up on milk. It is advisable to take a product of home origin. In the event that this is not possible, you can use milk similar in quality and fat content to the product shown in the photo.
Prepare all the products shown in the photo. Kefir (curdled milk) is heated to room temperature to start the work of lactic acid bacteria in it.
Pour the milk into a thick stainless steel saucepan or enameled bowl. Under no circumstances should aluminum containers be used for making cottage cheese! Also, take into account that in order to obtain high-quality homemade cheeses and cottage cheese, you should observe sanitary conditions in the room, wash your hands before cooking and use equipment disinfected with boiling water.
Prepare two pepsin tablets for every liter of milk.
Grind them into powder.
Pour acidin-pepsin with a few tablespoons of water and leave warm for a few minutes.
Heat the milk to a temperature of thirty degrees Celsius. Use a cooking thermometer to be sure.
Add kefir to the milk, and then mix the workpiece thoroughly. Leave the milk for five minutes to infuse.
Dissolved acedin-pepsin will look something like the product in the photo.
After the time has elapsed, pour the enzyme into the pan. Mix the milk well.
The milk will begin to curdle very quickly. The proof of this will be the settling of grains on a spoon.
From this moment, the process of fermentation of milk begins. In order for it to pass correctly, the milk container must be placed closer to a heat source or in an oven that will maintain a temperature of twenty-five degrees Celsius.
If the conditions are met, the curd mass will completely separate from the whey in sixty minutes.
The finished sourdough will look like the blank in the picture.
With a long knife, chop the curd curd directly in the pan. Try not to shake the bowl, because the larger the pieces of sour milk, the fatter the cottage cheese will turn out.
After slicing is complete, carefully place the pan on the stove and set the fire to low. If necessary, use a flame spreader.
Heat the workpiece to forty degrees Celsius.
Remove the saucepan from the heat and let the milk cool to room temperature. It will take no more than fifteen minutes.
After time, the milk will look like the product in the photo.
Strain the curd from the whey. To do this, use a colander and gauze in several layers.
Do not try to pour out the entire mass at once. Carefully select the curd clot with a slotted spoon and transfer to cheesecloth.
When all the cottage cheese has been selected, press down firmly on the workpiece and try to drain as much water as possible.
Cover the workpiece with the free ends of the gauze, and then form a rounded workpiece. From the specified amount of ingredients, about a kilogram of wet cottage cheese is obtained. Place the workpiece in a colander, and place a container weighing about one kilogram on top of it. As a press, a jar filled with water is suitable.
After two hours, the cheese should be turned over. You can free the workpiece from gauze.
That's the whole technology on how to make real Ossetian cheese at home. The mass of the finished product is about eight hundred grams. Store the workpiece in the refrigerator for no more than ten days in a container with a tight-fitting lid. Use the treat in accordance with recipes that contain this product as an ingredient. Enjoy your meal!

All dairy ingredients can be easily purchased at the farmers' market, but you can buy acidin-pepsin at the pharmacy. If this ingredient is not available, you can use sourdough or rennet. These two components are sold in supermarkets, online stores and some pharmacies specializing in the sale of baby food.

Homemade Ossetian cheese has a low calorie content, so it can be eaten by those who follow a diet. The delicacy can no doubt be used to prepare delicious salads, soups and baby food.

KBJU and composition for the whole dish

Young Ossetian cheese is prepared in the manner of brynza and to some extent resembles its texture. This pickled cheese is served fresh or used in baking recipes, the most popular of which are the famous

Ossetian cheese - recipe at home

To prepare Ossetian cheese, you need pepsin. It is sometimes sold in tablets or as a solution. Below we will give the proportions for making cheese with pepsin powder, but you can adapt it to suit the enzyme you have on hand.

Ingredients:

milk - 5.6 l;
pepsin powder on the tip of a knife;
sour cream - 460 g.

Cooking

Ferment milk at room temperature with sour cream. Dissolve pepsin powder in a part of the resulting mixture and add it to the rest of the milk with sour cream. The mass will quickly begin to curl up. Cover the container with the future cheese and leave it warm for about an hour. Do not touch the cheese to form an even and uniform curd. After an hour, cut the clot formed on the surface with a knife into equal squares. Leave the container with the future cheese for another half hour so that the clots sink to the bottom. Carefully transfer the curds to a colander lined with a double layer of gauze, gather the edges, and leave the cheese under the load for a couple of hours. At the end of the allotted time, Ossetian cheese at home will be ready, all that remains is to sprinkle its sides with salt.

If you plan to store the cheese, then immerse it in a concentrated saline solution.

Ingredients:

milk - 4.3 l;
rennet - 1 bottle;
- 65 ml;
a teaspoon of salt;
dried herbs for sprinkling.

Cooking

Slightly warm the milk and dilute a small amount of yogurt in it. Leave the mixture to ferment for half an hour, and in the meantime, dilute a bottle of rennet in water, following the proportions indicated in the instructions.

Pour the diluted enzyme into the milk, stir, cover the bowl and leave for an hour. After the time has passed, cut the cheese clot into portions with a knife. Let the clots sink to the bottom for about 15 minutes, and then separate them from the whey, lay them on cheesecloth and leave under weight for 3 hours. Salt the surface of the cheese and sprinkle with herbs (if desired).

If you do not know how to store Ossetian cheese at home, then dip the head of cheese in a strong saline solution to keep it for a long time, or let it dry slightly and serve immediately.