Monday, October 12, 2009

Queso Blanco

I am currently on the maiden cheese making voyage. EM found this recipe that is supposed to be ridiculously easy for "Queso Blanco", which is a Mexican soft cheese. I cut the recipe in half, because I thought a gallon of a cheese I wasn't sure I was going to like might be overkill. Anyway, it is looking like I am going to have about 2.5 cups of cheese, and about a quart and a half of wasted milk. The cheese is hanging in cheese cloth right now, dripping whey into a bowl. But there is also a huge amount of milk that I ended up with after putting the milk in the cheese cloth in the colander. I covered the bowl that it's in with a towel and set it aside, I am hoping it's going to turn into yogurt, or cottage cheese or at least the whey will separate out. Does anyone have any idea what I can do with this milk. It seems a shame to waste it.

INGREDIENTS
.
1 Gallon Whole Milk
1/4 Cup White Vinegar**
.
  1. Heat milk to 180 F (82 C) stirring constantly. Be careful not to burn the milk.
  2. While mixing with a whisk, slowly add the white vinegar. You will notice the milk begins to curdle. (I don't know if you are supposed to keep this on the heat or not... does anyone know?)
  3. Keep stirring for 10-15 minutes.
  4. Line a colander with a fine cheesecloth.
  5. Pour the curdled milk through the colander.
  6. Allow the curds to cool for about 20 minutes.
  7. Tie the four corners of the cheese cloth together and hang it to drain for about 5 - 7 hours (until it stops dripping).
  8. The solidified cheese can be broken apart and salted to taste or kept unsalted.
Update:
This cheese venture did not turn out very well. After letting it hang for 5 hours Monday night, I put the cheese cloth bag in a sieve over a bowl in the refrigerator overnight. In the morning I hung it back up where it continued to drip for about five more hours. When I finally opened it up, there was a cheese like substance clinging to the cheese cloth, but inside was mostly still milk. I scraped the cheesy part out into the milky part in a container and mixed it all together. It was sort of like a very bland, very milky cottage cheese. So I added some sea salt. Then it was a very salty, very milky cottage cheese. So I've let it sit in the fridge overnight again in hopes the saltiness will mellow out and it will be edible.

I few of the things I think I did wrong. I believe that once the milk reaches 185ยบ you should remove it from the heat, add the vinegar and leave it alone to curdle for 15 minutes. I don't think the cheese can curdle if you are stirring it constantly, so next time I am going to try that.

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