Say Cheese

Here at the Prancing Pony, we eat a lot of cheese. When I say a lot of cheese, I mean that we run out of cheese almost as frequently as we run out of chocolate. The thing is, cheese is not exactly the most eco product. Large scale dairying in New Zealand means that farmers increasingly put marginal land under pressure, using fertilizers irrigation to boost grass growth in dry areas. This pulls water out of streams and aquifers, beyond sustainable levels. The grass, having gone through the cow, gets turned into nitrogen-rich poop, which flows into streams (along with the fertilizer runoff) and causes lots of ecological problems.

The net result of this is that while we like cheese, we don’t much like the problems that go along with the milk production. I decided that it’d be an idea to try and make my own cheese – after all, it’s only milk and enzymes. Now, this doesn’t solve the problems of the dairy industry, but it does help promote an awareness of where the food we eat actually comes from.  So, from the powers of Google, here is the

Soft Cheesy Cheese

You need:           1 X 2L bottle of milk (dark blue top)

Buttermilk – you can buy this from the supermarket, make sure it says ‘Cultured’.

‘Renco’ Rennet – also from the supermarket, probably near the jams/jellies section

Pour milk into big, extremely clean saucepan, add ¼ cup buttermilk. Heat to 20°C – when you drop some on your wrist it should feel on the warm side of cool, but not cold. Mix 5 drops liquid rennet in 1/8 cup cold water. Add to milk and stir well.

This is the hard part. Put a lid on it, put it aside and don’t mess with it. You’re waiting until the curd gets a clean break – this can take 12 – 24 hours (or more). A clean break is when you dip a really clean finger in, and you get a clean hole in the curd that fills with whey (milky white liquid) but that holds its shape reasonably well.

When you have a clean break, take a long knife and cut the curd into cubes. Take a colander and line it with a clean & sterilised handkerchief, tea towel or cheesecloth. Ladle the curds into it and suspend the cloth, preferably in the fridge, and definitely with a large container underneath to collect the whey. Leave overnight or longer. Then take the curds and put a few tablespoons of salt on them, and rub in thoroughly. At this point you can also add herbs, garlic, etc for flavor. The cheese looks like cream cheese, and is soft and rich. It will keep for a few days in the fridge (probably longer… but ours got eaten in gluten free vegetarian lasagne).

PS: Keep the whey. We used it to cook rice – it makes brown rice much nicer.

- Nat