Home-made sheep’s cheese made from cow’s milk is an excellent appetizer, a filling for baking, salads, and just a tasty and nutritious addition to a morning breakfast.
Moreover, feta cheese is not only a delicious treat, but also a healthy food rich in vitamins, proteins and trace elements.
Brynza is a soft cheese made from goat, cow or sheep’s milk.
Many people liked this delicious product, but not everyone knows how to cook it at home.
So it’s very simple and easy to please yourself and to taste your own made feta cheese on weekdays and holidays. The main thing is to have a recipe on hand, observe the sequence and proportions of the preparation of this dish.
Brynza at home from cow's milk and general principles for its preparation
• To prepare a tasty and high-quality product, such as feta cheese, you need to select homemade ingredients that will give this dish a special taste, nutrition, and its consumer will bring incredible benefits.
• Milk for making feta cheese should be taken only fresh.
• Of course, a pasteurized product can be used to make feta cheese (meaning milk), but in this case the nutritional value of future feta cheese will decrease and it can be safely attributed to diet-free skimmed foods.
• Vinegar or pepsin (which can be purchased at any pharmacy) can serve as starter for feta cheese.
• Brynza should contain the main components, such as milk, salt and sourdough.
• The color of the cheese should be white, and the consistency is soft and slightly brittle.
• The fewer holes and voids in feta cheese, the better and more useful this tender and appetizing dish, prepared according to all the rules, will be considered.
Recipes and especially the preparation of feta cheese at home from cow's milk
Recipe 1. Brynza at home from cow's milk (Classic)
Ingredients:
• Milk (fresh cow) - 3 liters.
• Vinegar (9%) - 3 tbsp. spoons.
• Salt - 30 mg.
Cooking method:
Milk must be poured into the pan and set it on fire to wait for the product to boil. While the milk is boiling, pour vinegar (or lemon juice) into a glass.
When the milk boils, it is necessary to pour the vinegar, add salt and stir for a few more minutes, for the best result of folding.
As a result, milk will turn out a kind of curd cheese ingredient, consisting of whey and curd.
Now you need to put gauze on top of the prepared colander and strain the contents of the pan.
Future feta cheese will remain in a colander on gauze, and strained whey in a saucepan. Then the gauze with the contents must be collected and twisted into a bundle and left in a colander.
Next, you need to put oppression on the feta cheese, to drain excess fluid into the pan. For example, you can take a bottle or a bottle of water, or you can just have a large cobblestone.
Under oppression, cheese must be left for several hours. The longer the feta cheese is under oppression, the saltier, sharper it is, and later it is better cut.
Recipe 2. Brynza at home from cow's milk (spicy-salty taste)
Ingredients:
• Milk - 2 l.
• Pepsin (small amount).
• Salt.
Cooking method:
To prepare feta cheese, you need to take pepsin (on the tip of a knife) and dissolve it in water.
Important! Do not overdo it with pepsin in order to avoid the appearance of a certain aftertaste in the feta cheese in the future.
Next, the milk must be brought on fire to 40 degrees. Then remove the milk and pour the solution with pepsin into it. And then set aside the resulting consistency for 20 minutes.
Next, you need to beat the mixture with a whisk for about half an hour, and when milk and pepsin begin to solidify, this mass will need to be thrown into a colander to drain the whey.
Further cheese in gauze will need to betray a certain form and lower it into a brine with salt for a day. During this time, the feta cheese will need to rotate, and rotate to evenly salting it.
This feta cheese can be served with greens and tomatoes.
Recipe 3. Brynza at home from cow's milk (Home option)
Ingredients:
• Milk - 2 l.
• Eggs - 6 pcs.
• Salt - 70 gr.
• Sour cream - 0.5 kg.
Cooking method:
Milk must be brought to a boil. Beat eggs and sour cream with a mixer. The resulting mixture of eggs and sour cream must be mixed with boiled milk and salt.
Then, over a small fire (to avoid burning milk), constantly stir the contents of the pan until milk is better curdled in the form of flakes.
After folding, the resulting curd mass must be separated from the serum and left to drain for several hours.
After the curd mass was freed from excess fluid, the gauze in which it had to be tightly wrapped and, laying on top of oppression, leave overnight.
Important. In order for the cheese to be cut better and not to crumble, the slicing knife must be heated on fire.
Recipe 4. Brynza at home from cow's milk with herbs
Ingredients:
• Milk - 3l.
• Sour cream - 0.5 l.
• Kefir - 400 ml.
• Eggs - 9 pcs.
• Salt - 80 gr.
• Dill (fresh) - a bunch.
Cooking method:
Fresh cow's milk must be poured into the pan, salt and put on fire. Then in milk, when it boils, it is necessary to pour eggs beaten with a mixer or blender, add kefir and sour cream.
Then all components must be thoroughly mixed.
Next, you need to wash the greens well and finely it, crumble add to the pan with milk.
It is recommended to cook the resulting mixture for several minutes, until the curdled portion of the milk is separated from the whey.
Further, the existing mass must be thrown into a gauze in a colander, and after all the liquid drains, send the feta cheese under oppression to a cool place.
In a few hours, the most delicious and nutritious product is ready.
Recipe 5. Brynza at home from cow's milk "Dietary"
Ingredients:
• Milk - 1 liter.
• Kefir - 1 liter.
• Eggs - 6 pcs.
• Salt - an amateur.
• Spices (black and red pepper, caraway seeds, garlic).
• Greens (dill, parsley).
Cooking method:
For the preparation of dietary cheese, it is necessary to combine milk and kefir, pour them into a saucepan and put on a small fire to boil.
Next, you need to beat the eggs with a mixer or blender until foamy and pour them into a pan with milk and kefir.
After all the ingredients must be brought to a boil, stirring them constantly.
Then, when whey appears, remove the pan from the heat, cool the mass and add finely crushed greens, salt and spices to it.
Next, the mixture needs to be filtered through gauze and then laid under oppression for half a day.
The cheese should be spicy, piquant and aromatic.
Recipe 6. Brynza at home from cow's milk (Bulgarian version)
Ingredients:
• Milk - 5 l.
• Ferment (Pepsin).
• Salt.
• Vodichka.
Cooking method:
Milk must be poured into a saucepan, brought to a boil and put out the fire. Next, add pepsin to the milk and close the pan with a lid.
Important. Do not touch, twist, or shake the pan. In addition, the saucepan must be wrapped with a blanket to gradually cool the contents.
As soon as the mixture cools and thickens, it must be laid out on a gauze base, folded in several layers, twisted and hung all night to drain the serum.
The cheese left in the gauze base must be put under oppression and left it there for another seven hours.
After feta cheese from gauze, you need to pull it out and put in a saline solution prepared from water (whey) and salt.
It is in such a brine that can be stored for quite a long time.
Recipe 7. Brynza at home from cow's milk (pasteurized)
Ingredients:
• Milk (pasteurized) - 2.5 liters.
• Sour cream (20% fat content) - 0.5 kg.
• Eggs 7 pcs.
• Salt - 75 gr.
Cooking method:
In one third of the milk, poured into a saucepan and brought to a boil, you need to dissolve the salt.
As the milk boils, it is necessary to pour the remaining product into it and bring it to a boil again.
Separately, using a mixer or a blender, beat eggs with sour cream to a uniform consistency and pour it into milk.
In milk, whipped sour cream with eggs should be poured in portions with thorough mixing.
After all the ingredients collected in the saucepan, put on a small fire and bring the mixture again to a boil.
As soon as the whey and cottage cheese are separated, gauze spreads in a colander and the contents of the pan are poured onto it.
When the whey drains through cheesecloth and colander into a special bowl, you need to twist the fabric well, and squeeze the feta cheese and put it in a cold place, for example, in the refrigerator for half a day.
In order for the cheese to come out smooth and elastic on top of it, you need to put a plate, press it to the cooked cheese and put the oppression on top.
After 12 hours, the delicious food will be ready to eat.
Recipe 8. Brynza at home from cow's milk (using sourdough)
Ingredients:
• Milk - 2 l.
• Sourdough - 10 drops.
• Yogurt - 60 gr.
• Salt, water.
Cooking method:
In heated milk up to 30 degrees, you need to put yogurt and mix both components thoroughly. Then add the yeast to milk with yogurt and mix all the products again.
Next, the resulting consistency must be drained into a jar, wrapped in a towel and tidied up in a warm place for an hour.
The mixture needs to be mixed a couple of times.
Next, in a clean dish you need to install a colander and put gauze on it. After that, in a colander you need to discard the curd mass and leave for half an hour for further draining of serum.
Then the product in gauze should be twisted, tied and left overnight. After this time, the feta cheese will need to be transferred to a saline solution prepared from water, whey and salt.
In a day, the feta cheese will be ready.
Brynza at home from cow's milk - cooking tricks and useful tips
• In order for the feta cheese to not turn out acidic under oppression, in the summer and when it is hot it must be cleaned in the refrigerator.
• For the manufacture of feta cheese, it is better to choose dishes consisting of glass or enameled containers.
• The best way to store feta cheese is your own pickle.
• To prepare brine per liter of water and whey, put a glass of salt. It is recommended to withstand cheese in such a brine for at least 10 days. But in such brine, the feta cheese is brackish and sharp, and this is not for everybody.
• In order to prevent cheese and not get too salty without soaking and brine, you can put it in the refrigerator and sprinkle with salt.
• You can prepare the starter yourself - clean and rinse the lamb's stomach, dry it, cut into thin cubes. With the right use of such an ingredient, the leaven will turn out great.
• In order to make the feta cheese spicy and pungent to the main ingredients, you can add additional ingredients, such as red, black pepper, mushrooms, herbs, paprika, garlic and more.
