Cheese at home. The best recipes for homemade cow's milk cheese

Brynza is considered to be the most delicious variety of all available soft cheeses. The brine product can be used as independent snack or add to vegetable salads, first and second courses, pies. Experienced housewives, through trial and error, brought out effective cooking technologies. They can easily be turned into reality. on your own if you stick to practical advice. Consider the main aspects in order.

Cheese at home: a classic of the genre

• fat milk (2-3.2%) - 1.8 l.
• fat kefir (3.2%) - 180 gr.
• sour cream (fat content 15-20%) - 375 gr.
• chicken egg - 7 pcs.
• fine table salt - 55 gr.

1. Pick up an enameled pan, pour milk into it, add salt. Put on the stove, set the average power, bring the mass to a boil.
2. In a separate bowl, beat kefir and sour cream with a mixer so that the mass rises 1.5 times. Start slowly pouring in the hot milk while stirring.
3. Put the mixture back on the stove and bring to a boil. When the first bubbles appear, reduce the heat to the minimum mark. After 15 minutes, you will get whey and curd.
4. Prepare a colander, line it with several layers of gauze. Transfer the mixture to the filter, let the whey drain.
5. After that, wrap the cottage cheese in gauze, tie the edges to make a bag. Send the mixture under the press, you can put a heavy bottle of water.
6. After 5 hours, you need to move the future cheese to the refrigerator for 3 hours. When the specified time has passed, remove the gauze, taste the product.

Cheese with table vinegar

• whole milk - 2.8 liters.
• salt - 120 gr.
• table vinegar - 45 ml.
• drinking water - 475 ml.

1. Pour the milk into an enamel saucepan, put on medium heat. If bubbles appear, turn down the power to the lower mark, pour in table vinegar. Stir the composition until the serum begins to stand out.
2. At this point, turn off the burner, remove the mass from the heat, leave the mixture to cool completely. Prepare a kitchen sieve, put gauze folded in 3 layers into it, pour the curd mass and whey into it.
3. Apply a little with your hands, wait 2 hours until the serum drains completely. Next, tie off the loose ends of the gauze to form a fabric bag.
4. Place a heavy water bottle (4-5 kg.) on top of the composition, start preparing the brine. Mix salt with drinking water, wait for the crystals to dissolve.
5. Pour the solution into a plastic container, move the pressed cheese there, put the bottle back in. The cheese will be ready after 6 hours. Store the product in the refrigerator.

The age of technological progress leaves its mark on society. Almost every housewife has a multicooker; the device can be easily used to make cheese. Subject to all conditions, you will receive about 350 gr. final product.

• chicken egg - 4 pcs.
• whole milk - 2.3 liters.
• crushed salt - 65 gr.

1. Sterilize glass jar in the following way: take a wide pan, put a container in it, fill it with water almost to the neck (indentation of about 3 cm). Boil the composition for about 20 minutes, then turn off the burner and dry the jar.
2. Pour milk into a container, cover the neck with gauze or a bandage, leave in a warm place for 24 hours to make the composition sour. You can also use sour milk initially, in which case nothing needs to be done with it.
3. If the milk is well pasteurized, it may not oxidize. In this case, pour the product into a multi-bowl, set the “Extinguishing” program, duration - 10 minutes.
4. In a separate bowl, beat the chicken eggs and salt, pour the mass into a multi-bowl with sour milk. Turn on the "Baking" function (holding time - 25 minutes).
5. Take a sieve, put 3 layers of gauze into the cavity, pour the finished product into this filter. Squeeze out the serum to remove excess moisture from the glass. Tie the loose edges of the gauze, put a five-liter bottle on top, wait 6 hours.

Cheese with spices (dietary)

• chicken egg - 7 pcs.
• fat milk (3.2%) - 1.2 l.
• curdled milk or kefir - 1.2 liters.
• cumin - 1 pinch
• garlic - 2 cloves
• fresh dill - 1 bunch
• ground red pepper - on the tip of a knife

1. Take a pan with thick walls and a bottom, pour in kefir or yogurt, put the container on the stove. Wait until the first bubbles appear (bring to a boil).
2. While the mixture is languishing, mix the chicken eggs with salt, then send to the boiled mass and reduce the power. Periodically stir the composition, you will see how kefir is divided into whey and cottage cheese.
3. It is at this point that the mixture must be removed from the heat and cooled. As soon as it reaches room temperature, add cumin, ground pepper, salt, garlic press, chopped dill.
4. Prepare a colander, cover it with three layers of gauze, pour the mass into it. Wait for the serum to drain, to speed up the process, press the mixture with your hands. Leave for 3 hours.
5. Tie the edges of the gauze together, place on a plate, put a 5-liter bottle on top. Leave for at least 8 hours, after the expiration of the period, remove the gauze, put the cheese in a food container.

• eggs - 6 pcs.
• sour cream (fat content 20-25%) - 375 gr.
• fat milk - 2.2 liters.
• fine sea salt - to taste

1. Mix milk with salt, pour into a saucepan, put on the stove, turn on the fire at medium power. Stir constantly so that the mixture does not rise and start to foam. If this cannot be avoided, reduce the fire.
2. In another saucepan, beat sour cream and chicken eggs, the mass will rise 2 times. As soon as the milk starts to boil, pour beaten eggs into it, put it on the stove.
3. The serum will stand out, at this point you can turn off the fire. Prepare a container, insert a colander into it and lay gauze. Transfer the mixture to a kind of filter, leave for 4 hours.
4. During the specified time, the liquid will drain, you just have to tie the edges and send the mass under oppression. As a press, you can use a five-liter bottle.
5. Next, you need to withstand the cheese for about 5 hours, then put it in the refrigerator overnight. In the morning you can enjoy the exquisite taste.

1. Whenever possible, use homemade milk rather than store-bought. You can cook brynza with goat's and cow's milk.
2. If you're making cheese during hot weather, keep it under pressure in the refrigerator, not at room temperature.
3. The advantage of purchased milk in the preparation of cheese is that the cheese is light, dietary. It can be eaten by people with high cholesterol.

In addition to the classic ingredients in the preparation of cheese, mushrooms fried or marinated in vinegar, parsley, celery and other ingredients are used as desired. To prepare 0.5 kg. cheese you will need about 2.7 liters. milk with a high degree of fat content (from 3.2% and above). If you take milk product low fat content, more composition is needed.

Video: homemade cheese without enzymes

Brynza is soft homemade cheese, which is made from sheep, goat or cow's milk. You can talk a lot about the benefits of this cheese, because it retains almost all the beneficial properties of milk, contains a lot of calcium, and it also perfectly stimulates digestion.

It is very easy to make cheese at home, and it will be much tastier and healthier than store-bought!

Cheese at home: cooking rules

This cheese was invented by nomads who transported sheep's milk in skins made from the dried stomachs of lambs, and one day, after a long journey, they found instead of milk a dense white clot, very tasty. Later, these clots were called cheese.

It is advisable to take homemade ingredients for cheese, you can buy them from grandmothers at the bazaar or go to the village to get them. Of course, if there is no opportunity to purchase homemade full-fat milk, then it is quite possible to get by with pasteurized milk. In this case, the nutritional value of the product will decrease, and the taste will not be so tender and creamy. But purchased milk also has its own plus - if you cook from it, you will get a dietary and practically fat-free product at the end.

To prepare 1 kg of cheese, you need about 5 liters of milk with a fat content above average, and if the fat content is low, then milk consumption increases. Mandatory requirement there is only one thing for milk - it must be very fresh.

Starters can be pepsin, vinegar, or you can make your own starter from the stomach of a lamb. To do this, you need to clean and dry the ventricle, and then cut it into thin strips. Pour a few pieces of the stomach with clean water and leave for a day. A completely natural product is ready.

If the starter is added correctly, the milk should curdle within 30 minutes. The taste of cheese can be changed according to your desire, add paprika, red pepper, garlic, herbs, cumin or mushrooms. You can constantly experiment with its taste, getting a new tasty product every time.

Cheese at home: recipes

Brynza homemade without sourdough

Compound:

• Milk - 2 l
• Sour cream - 400 g (preferably fatter, at least 25%)
• Eggs - 6 pcs.
• Salt - to taste

Cooking:

1. Salt milk to taste and put on fire. Stir constantly so that it does not “run away” and does not burn.
2. Beat eggs and sour cream with a mixer.
3. When the milk boils, add the sour cream mixture to it and cook, stirring constantly, until the whey begins to separate.
4. Take a clean pan, put a colander lined with gauze on it.
5. Drain the cooked mixture into a colander and let drain.
6. Throw over the drained cottage cheese with the ends of gauze, put a plate and put some oppression, for example, a half-liter jar of water. Leave it like that for 2-3 hours.
7. When all the whey has completely drained, put the cheese in the refrigerator overnight. You can already eat in the morning.

Brynza homemade with vinegar

Compound:

• Homemade milk - 3 l
• Vinegar - 50 ml (can be replaced with lemon juice)
• Water - 0.5 l
• Salt - 125 g

Cooking:

1. Bring the milk to a boil over low heat, pour in the vinegar. Stir until whey separates. Leave in saucepan until cool.
2. Put gauze on a colander and pour in the resulting mass. Let drain 1-1.5 hours.
3. Tie gauze and send under the press, its weight should be 2 times heavier than the resulting cheese.
4. After an hour, we prepare the brine. We combine cold water and salt, lower the resulting cheese and again send it under the press. After 5-6 hours you can eat.

Homemade cheese with sourdough

In this recipe for the preparation of cheese, we need natural sourdough. Pepsin is an enzyme, which is produced by mammalian stomach cells and breaks down proteins into peptides. You can buy pepsin at a pharmacy. Try not to overdo it with sourdough, as the cheese will get an unpleasant taste. 1 g of pepsin is calculated for 100 liters of milk.

Compound:

• Pepsin - on the tip of a knife
• Homemade milk - 3-4 l
• Salt - to taste
• Water - 1 l

Cooking:

1. Dilute pepsin with a small amount of water.
2. Heat milk to 45-50 degrees, without removing it from heat, pour diluted pepsin into it. Stir, turn off the gas and leave for 10-15 minutes.
3. Then beat with a fork or whisk for 20 minutes until the milk begins to turn into a solid mass. If the milk is still watery, you can add some pepsin.
4. Then recline on gauze and allow the serum to drain completely.
5. Give the cheese the desired shape and leave for a day in salt water so that the liquid completely covers the cheese.

Homemade diet cheese

This recipe is very tasty and low calorie cheese. For 100 g of the finished product, only 68.5 kcal. Of course, this is not quite feta cheese in the full sense of the word, as it is made from skimmed and 1% milk and kefir, but for girls on a diet, such a recipe is just a godsend! If you want to make a full-fledged cheese, take 2.5% fat kefir and homemade milk.

Compound:

• Kefir - 1 l
• Milk - 1 l
• Eggs - 6 pcs.
• Salt - to taste
• Red pepper - a small pinch
• Cumin - on the tip of a knife
• Garlic - 1 clove
• Greens - 1 bunch

Cooking:

1. Pour kefir and milk into a saucepan and put on gas, without bringing to a boil, pour in a thin stream of eggs, beaten with a mixer with salt.
2. Bring to a boil and stir constantly for a few minutes until the whey separates.
3. Remove from fire and let cool
4. Mix the mixture with finely chopped herbs, squeezed garlic clove, cumin and red pepper.
5. Pour the mass into a colander lined with gauze and let the whey drain. Smooth out the cheese mass with a spoon.
6. Wrap the gauze and put the cheese under oppression for 5-6 hours. If you do it in the evening, in the morning you will have wonderful cheese ready for breakfast. It goes well with black bread and tomatoes.

Making cheese at home is quite an exciting process. Perhaps, having learned how to make cheese, you will want to do homemade cheese making and master recipes for more complex cheeses. In any case, you will have delicious homemade cheese on your table, the quality of which can be no doubt. Enjoy your meal!

Brynza is a cheese made from the milk of various animals, after which it is soaked in brine. His home is the East. It has been cooked there for 7000 years, adding various spices - hot pepper, cumin and others. If you love this delicate cheese, why not learn how to make it yourself? The finished product will be much tastier, healthier and cheaper than store-bought. And "Popular about Health" right now will tell you a homemade recipe for cheese from goat's milk.

goat milk recipes

Recipe with milk number 1

Ingredients: goat's milk - 3 l; vinegar - 3 tbsp. l.; salt and water for brine.

Goat milk must be bought from the market if you do not have your own goat. What is sold in stores will not work, it will not make cheese. Put the milk on the stove and let it boil. Once this happens, pour in the vinegar. Now arm yourself with a spoon and constantly stir the contents of the pan - at this time the whey is separated, the milk begins to curdle very quickly. So that the grains of cottage cheese do not stick to the bottom of the dishes, you need to stir the mass.

Prepare another container in advance, cover it with a large piece of gauze folded in two layers. Throw the curd mass on cheesecloth. Collect the edges of the fabric with a bag and hang the cheese so that the liquid is all glass. Then place the bundle under oppression for 2-3 hours. The cheese is already ready, but it still needs to be soaked in saline. To do this, you need boiled chilled water. Prepare the brine as follows - for 1 cup (200 ml) of water, 1 teaspoon of salt. Place the cheese in the brine and soak in the refrigerator for at least 3 days. The longer the product is in brine, the more salty it will become. If you are cooking for children, then you can leave the cheese completely unsalted.

Home recipe number 2

Ingredients: homemade goat's milk - 3l; salt - 1 tbsp. l.; vinegar - 3 tbsp. l.; cumin - 1 tsp

This recipe differs from the previous one quite a bit - in this case, cheese does not have to be kept in saline, in addition, cumin is present here. So, boil homemade milk, pour in vinegar and add salt. When the cottage cheese begins to float up, separating from the whey, constantly stir the contents of the pan.

Place a sieve over a clean container, cover it with gauze, drain the whey and curd lumps into it. Let the liquid drain, add cumin to the mass, mix with clean hands, like dough. Then hang a bundle of cheese for 2 hours. Now you need to place the cheese, as in the previous case, under oppression for 10-12 hours. Homemade goat milk cheese is ready. From three liters of good fat milk, at least 450 grams of the product is usually obtained.

Recipe number 3

Ingredients: 2 tbsp homemade sour cream, goat's milk 2.5 l, chicken eggs 6 pcs, 1 tbsp kefir, table salt 2.5 tbsp. l.

This recipe is special. There is no vinegar in it, and others are used here to curdle milk. healthy foods- kefir and sour cream. Cheese according to the recipe will turn out to be exceptionally tender and satisfying.

So, take a thick-walled pan, pour milk into it, add salt. Now beat the eggs separately to get a homogeneous mass. Add 2 cups of sour cream to it, mix again. As soon as the milk begins to rise, boil, send the sour cream and egg mass and kefir to the pan. Now your task is to reduce the fire and constantly mix the mass, since the resulting curd flakes can stick to the bottom. You should not keep the milk mass on fire for a long time, remove it from the stove literally a minute after the start of the formation of curd lumps.

We send the mass to a sieve or colander covered with gauze, let the liquid drain well. Next, move the cheese clot into a mold for making cheese or under a press. After a few hours, turn over and leave under oppression for several hours.

How to store homemade cheese?

Dairy products do not keep for a long time, everyone knows this. Therefore, you do not need to cook a large amount of cheese at once. But if, nevertheless, you have made a lot of cheese product, then it will be useful to know the rules for its storage.

Some housewives make the mistake of trying to preserve cheese by putting it in cold boiled water. In this case, the following happens - the surface layer begins to soak, floats, after which the product deteriorates. Others store cheese in cling film or foil. This is also wrong - cheese in such conditions literally suffocates. If you store it completely unpackaged, it becomes weathered and also deteriorates after a few days. What to do?

It is correct to store cheese cooked in milk in a clean glass or porcelain container in brine. The shelf life of the cheese will depend on the degree of salt concentration. If you have prepared a lot of cheese product, and you need to keep it for a long time, make a strong saline solution, brine. To do this, dissolve in the right amount boiled water so much salt that a raw (clean) chicken egg dipped into the solution floats. In this case, the solution has the desired density, in which the cheese can be stored in the refrigerator for several months. Do not worry about the taste of the product - it will absorb exactly as much salt as needed.

Is it worth it to know and cook brynza with goat's milk? In general, we will give the recipe, but it's up to you ... I can only say that this product is expensive in stores, and its quality is not always good. Having prepared such cheese at home, you can add it to salads and other dishes, eat with tea and just like that. And by following the storage rules, you can be sure that the delicate product will remain fresh for a long time.

Brynza is a pickled cheese used in the preparation of various salads, pasta, fillings for pies and so on. Today it can be easily bought in any supermarket. However, you can learn how to cook cheese at home according to the recipes of our ancestors. And it is neither in taste nor in appearance will not be different from the store.

Usefulness of cheese

Brynza differs from other types of cheese primarily in that it does not have a crust. It is a soft sour-salty product that is prepared from cow, buffalo, sheep, goat milk or a mix of these types of milk. Despite the fact that pickled cheese is high-calorie product, it has many useful properties. Cheese is rich in protein, which promotes development and growth muscle mass. Therefore, this product is so loved by athletes who want to build muscle.

Since cheese is a dairy product, it is rich in calcium. It promotes healthy growth of strong bones as well as teeth and nails. Other trace elements are also present in large quantities, for example, sodium, phosphorus, beta-carotene, potassium and vitamins - A, B 1, B 2, C, K, PP and others.

For the fair sex, cheese is a source of beautiful silky hair and velvety, young-looking skin.

However, if there are problems with the urinary system or kidneys, the consumption of this product should be slightly limited. First of all, due to the presence in it a large number salt.

Choice of milk and tools

Making brynza at home is quite easy. It requires regular products. First, let's prepare the ingredients. The main ingredient is milk. You can use goat or cow. It is better if the milk is homemade. If this is not possible, then you can take store-bought pasteurized. But be sure that the milk was very fatty. Immediately milked to take is not recommended. Place it in the refrigerator and let it rest for at least a few hours. But stale, older than three days, the product should not be used to cook homemade cheese according to the recipe.

Choose a high capacity for cooking. Such that the milk does not reach the edges by about 4-5 centimeters. This will prevent splashing of the product when stirring during cooking. You can take a regular pot.

We also need gauze and a colander for further decanting the whey. A saucepan or bowl with a lid, as well as a press, with which we will form our cheese. No other tricky kitchen appliances and devices are needed.

First cooking method

This is a recipe on how to make cheese from milk without sourdough.

Ingredients:

• cow's milk - 2 liters;
• eggs - 5-6 pieces;
• sour cream 15-20% fat - 400-420 grams;
• salt - 2-3 tablespoons.

We put the milk on a small fire, add salt, bring to a boil. At this time, we are preparing a mixture that will be a thickener. To do this, beat sour cream with eggs. Slowly add the mixture to the boiling milk. We make sure that the milk does not boil away and does not burn. The fire on the stove can be reduced a little more. Stirring, boil for another five to seven minutes - until the whey separates from the curd. The milk should curdle.

Next, put several layers of gauze into a colander and pour out the mass. Leave until the whey is completely drained. After that, we tie the free ends of the gauze well. Put the cheese in this form in a clean container and cover with a lid. We put oppression on top. For example, it could be a water bottle. Leave for at least 5 hours until completely cooled, then, without removing the press, put in the refrigerator overnight. And in the morning the cheese is ready to eat.

The second cooking method

There is another recipe for how to make cow's milk cheese at home.

Ingredients:

• cow's milk - 3 liters;
• salt - 2-3 tablespoons;
• lemon juice (can be replaced with vinegar) - 3-4 tablespoons.

We put the milk on a slow fire. Make sure it doesn't stick to the bottom of the pot. While stirring, gradually pour one tablespoon of vinegar into the liquid. We do this until the milk is completely curtailed in large lumps. Pour the entire contents of the pan into a colander previously covered with several layers of gauze. Tie the ends tightly and hang for a couple of hours. When all the liquid has drained, transfer the mass to a bowl and cover with a lid with oppression. To compact the cheese, keep it for about 4-5 hours. At this time, prepare the brine.

Pour the separated whey into a saucepan and add salt. You can pour in a little water so that the brine is not too salty and thick. We put the resulting cheese in salted whey and leave it in the refrigerator. Periodically it is necessary to turn the cheese over for a more uniform impregnation.

The third cooking method

Another way to make cow's milk cheese at home.

Ingredients:

• cow's milk - 5 l;
• salt - to taste;
• special - pepsin.

Pour milk into a saucepan, put on a small fire on the stove. Heat it up, but don't bring it to a boil. The temperature of milk should be approximately 38-40 degrees. You can approximately determine the time for removing the product from the fire by checking with your hand - we hold the product until we feel a slight warmth. If overcooked, the finished cheese may be slightly rubbery.

Next, add the starter, constantly stirring the milk. Leave the mass to ripen for 30-40 minutes. After this time, the curd will separate from the whey. Cut it into several small pieces, gradually draining the whey into another container. When all the liquid is removed, transfer the cheese to gauze, tie it and leave it in a bowl or saucepan under pressure for 4-5 hours. In order for the cheese to be salty, we prepare a brine from the remaining whey and salt. We cut the finished cheese into pieces and soak in it for about a day.

Goat cheese

Goat milk has a specific taste. Therefore, cheese based on such a product will be more fragrant and rich. These cheeses are becoming more and more popular. Also, goat's milk is very useful, in comparison with cow's milk it has more calcium, and less calories.

So, how to cook goat cheese at home? Everything is quite simple. Let's take 5 liters of goat's milk, pharmacy pepsin for starter (we look at the consumption rate and the method of preparing the starter itself on the package). We heat the milk in a large saucepan until the temperature "tolerates the hand." Then turn it off and add sourdough. Slowly stir the mixture with a wooden spoon or just your hand.

After a while, clots will begin to appear, which should increase and form larger and larger lumps. When the mass separates from the whey, put it in a colander lined with gauze in several layers. After 2-3 hours, we discard the cottage cheese into a container with a lid, put a load on top. And after a few hours the product is ready. We make a brine and store the cheese in it.

Lamb Stomach Sourdough

You can use sourdough for making cheese, bought at a store or pharmacy. But you can use a more natural product and make it yourself.

To do this, we need the stomach of a lamb, calf or kid. It is necessary to take the stomach of a young animal, which has not yet nibbled grass, but fed only on mother's milk. We wash the stomach well and dry it in a warm place, for example, over gas stove about two weeks. The organ should eventually become like parchment.

This will mean that our enzyme is ready. Remove it and cut into thin strips. Pour the resulting abomasum cold water for a day. The starter is ready! To prepare cheese, you need to add about 100 grams of such whey to 5 liters of milk. You can store dry for several months. You just need to wrap it in paper and put it in a tightly closed glass or tin jar.

Cheese storage

Freshly prepared cheese is stored in the refrigerator for about fifteen days. So that the cheese does not dry out and lose its taste qualities, it is put in a brine called brine. To prepare the brine, you will need approximately 5-6 tablespoons of coarse salt per one and a half liters of pure cold water. Pour the salt into the water and stir well until completely dissolved. Let's do a salinity test. Because unleavened brine can make cheese soft and sprawling.

Take a well-washed chicken egg and dip it into the solution. If it pops up and is visible on the surface with a diameter of 2.5-3 centimeters, then the brine is ready, if not, add more salt. It is convenient to store cheese in brine in glass, enameled or plastic container under a tightly closed lid.

Without brine, you can store pickled cheese in the freezer. However, it should be borne in mind that when defrosted, the taste properties of cheese deteriorate. If the cheese itself turned out to be salty, then you can soak it for several hours in clean water or milk.

Recipes

Cheese is a very useful and tasty product. And what can be cooked from brynza? It is part of numerous salads, complements pasta, pizza, serves as a filling for pies. Here are some simple yet delicious recipes.

Beet salad with cheese

Ingredients:

• lettuce - 1 bunch;
• mix of greens (parsley, dill, basil) - 1 bunch;
• roasted pumpkin seeds - 20 grams;
• cheese - 70-80 grams;
• beets - 250-350 grams;
• olive oil unrefined - 50 ml;
• lemon juice - 30 ml;
• garlic - 1 small clove;
• a mixture of dry salad dressings.

Let's prepare the beets first. Wash it well, wrap it in foil and bake in the oven at 200 degrees for 40-45 minutes. Ready and chilled beets cut into cubes or strips. Tear the lettuce leaves, finely chop the parsley and combine it all with beets. Then we prepare the dressing - mix olive oil with lemon juice, add seasonings, garlic and mix well until a homogeneous mixture. Dress and mix the salad. We crumble the cheese on top. At the end, sprinkle the whole dish with roasted seeds.

Cheese pies

Very helpful and delicious pies Great for breakfast or just as an appetizer. The recipe is simple and clear - even a novice hostess can handle it.

So, you will need the following ingredients:

• flour - 0.4 kg;
• water - 0.2 l;
• olive oil - 20 ml;
• apple cider vinegar or lemon juice - 15 ml;
• cheese - 0.2 kg;
• chicken egg - 1 pc.

First, in a bowl, mix all the liquid ingredients of the dough - water, egg, vinegar, olive oil. Then, stirring constantly, add the flour. When the mass becomes homogeneous and without lumps, cover with a film and leave to stand for about one hour.

At this time, you can prepare the filling. Thoroughly knead the cheese with a fork. If desired, you can add a little greenery (dill, parsley, green onions). Roll out the dough in one layer as thin as possible. Lay out the filling and twist, cut across into several equal parts and roll each cake a little more. From this amount of products, 8-9 pies are obtained. Fry each on both sides in a dry frying pan.

Milk soup with cheese

You can also cook first courses from brynza.

Ingredients:

• milk - 250 ml;
• water - 1 liter;
• cheese - 150-200 g;
• eggs - 2 pcs.;
• butter - 10 g.

Boil milk with water in a saucepan. Then add the cheese cut into small pieces and cook for another 12-15 minutes. Beat the eggs and season the soup with them. At the end, put a piece of butter. Serve with croutons and chopped fresh herbs

Brynza is very useful and delicious cheese, which has been known in cooking since ancient times. Having learned how to cook cheese at home, you can be sure that such a product will be more natural, and the taste will not differ at all from that bought in a store.

Brynza is a pickled cheese belonging to soft varieties. Many people like the delicate, slightly salty taste of Brynza, it is ideal both for preparing salads and for eating on its own (especially in hot weather).

Despite its relatively high calorie content, the product has a huge variety of useful substances. First of all, it is protein and calcium that predominate in it. Protein contributes to the active growth of muscle mass, and calcium strengthens bones, hair, nails, etc. In addition, it contains a considerable amount of various minerals that have a beneficial effect on our body.

General principles of preparation

Today on the shelves of shops you can find Bryndza both from a domestic manufacturer and from an imported one. And if for some reason you prefer not store-bought cheeses, but products made on your own, at home, then cooking Brynza will not require much work from you. The main thing is to have milk and salt on hand, as well as some ingredients for the sourdough, which is prepared as needed. Moreover, numerous recipes have the same cooking principle.

So, the main ingredient in the preparation of Brynza is milk, so its choice must be approached consciously. To make homemade Bryndza really tasty and healthy, it is advisable to use natural cow's milk. But if there is no such house at hand, then the milk purchased in the store will do just fine. It is only important that the percentage of its fat content is at least 3.2. And don't be afraid to buy even a pasteurized skimmed dairy product, because it makes a good low-calorie Bryndza.

And one more important point: from one liter homemade milk you will get much more soft cheese than from one liter of pasteurized cheese. Based on this, to prepare Brynza with purchased milk, it will be necessary to use it large quantity. From 1 liter of purchased milk, you get a little more than 300 g of finished Cheese. While about 400-450 g can be made from 1 liter of homemade product. Thus, it does not matter at all what kind of milk we use. It is important that it is fresh.

Bring the already salted milk to a boil, stirring occasionally, then add the leaven (vinegar or pepsin) to it, which causes it to become sour. Due to this, under the influence of heat, the milk is separated into the so-called whey and curd grounds. As soon as the curd thickens acquire the consistency and appearance of small boiled curd balls, remove the milk from the stove and throw the resulting mass into a colander, which we cover in several layers with a mesh cloth (gauze). This is necessary in order to qualitatively separate the resulting cottage cheese from the liquid, which we decant into any container. It is useful for boiling the brine (the so-called brine), where in the future you can pickle and save the cooked Bryndza.

As a starter, it is allowed to use the 9% vinegar or juice of freshly squeezed lemon that is always at hand, or you can resort to using a special substance - pepsin, developed for starter and sold in a pharmacy. When working with pepsin, it is very important not to overdo it, because Brynza will have a peculiar, unpleasant, spicy-salty aftertaste. In addition, if you overdo it with this substance, then the cheese can become hard, since pepsin has a quick viscosity.

The curd mass separated from the whey is thoroughly kneaded, giving the shape of the future Brynza. Self-made cheese should have a soft, slightly brittle structure, the color should be white.

Although if you cooked cheese on 100% cow's milk, then, unlike the product prepared on the store, your Cheese will have a slightly yellowish tint.

The less Bryndza has holes, the more tender the resulting taste will be. To do this, it is necessary to squeeze out the curd mass well, after which, having formed a certain shape, withstand the resulting lump for several hours under pressure in order for excess whey to escape. The time spent under pressure depends on the quality of kneading. If the mass is not very watery, then five hours will be enough. And if you knead and squeeze poorly, then a very watery mass will need to be left under pressure for 10 hours.

An ideal option for a press or oppression is something heavy (a stone or metal bar). But in the absence of it, a heavy container with something (for example, three-liter jar with jam). Freshly prepared Cheese, leaving in gauze, put in an empty bowl, and put oppression on it, which will allow excess liquid to leave. Later certain time reserved for oppression, lightly salted cheese can be eaten.

But in order for Bryndza to be salted better and retain its original taste and color for a longer period, it is recommended to store it in a brine or brine specially prepared for this. To prepare it, add water to the already existing whey (on a one-on-one basis) and boil a glass of salt in the prepared solution. In such a brine prepared in a simple way, you can keep the freshness of cheese for more than 10 days.

If you are not a fan of excessively salty food, then you need to understand that long-term storage of Bryndza in brine will make it taste much saltier. At the same time, Bryndza cannot be stored for a long time outside the brine. After 3-5 days, it will begin to dry and turn yellow. It is for this reason that the volume of production must be calculated based not only on the characteristics of storage, but also on your taste preferences.

Recipes

Brynza recipes, as noted above, are characterized by the same step-by-step principles. But especially for gourmets and people with food restrictions associated with health conditions, some adjustments were made to the time-tested traditional recipes, which made it possible to diversify the well-known taste of traditional Cheese. If you like cheese with a pronounced milky taste and aroma, then you need to give preference to goat's milk. If you use feta cheese mainly in salads and you don’t need a rich milky flavor, then you will need cow’s milk for this.

Traditional are recipes based on sourdough, according to which Brynza turns out to be naturally salty in taste. It has already been noted earlier that some people use vinegar or citric acid, juice, and others - pepsin. So what's the difference?

Bryndza on vinegar is considered classic, since this substance will not add an additional shade of taste or aroma to the future cheese. And Brynza with pepsin has a sharp-salty taste and a specific bitter aroma. Pepsin, unlike vinegar, combines with milk after it boils (about 10 milligrams of enzyme per 2-2.5 liters of milk). Milk with pepsin dissolved in it should be stirred with a whisk until it begins to solidify. Further instructions do not deviate from traditional recipe.

But especially for lovers of soft salty cheese, for whom foods with a high salt content are contraindicated, a recipe with sour cream was developed that does not require soaking in overly salted brine.

• According to this recipe, a small amount of salt is mixed with milk until boiling (two tablespoons of salt with a slide for 2 liters of milk), then 400 grams of 20% sour cream, whipped with five eggs, is added, which plays the role of a thickener, due to which the milk begins to sour.
• The subsequent actions do not deviate from the traditional recipe: we recline in a colander, form a head of cheese, put it under oppression and send it to the refrigerator for 12 hours. Cheese is ready.

In continuation of the topic of contraindications, it would be useful to note that in the piggy bank modern housewives there is a recipe for making diet Bryndza on kefir, the essence of which is that milk is mixed with kefir at the rate of one to one. Due to this, the fat content of milk is reduced, and as a result, Cheese turns out to be less high-calorie. The calorie content of dietary Cheese per 100 grams of the product is 160 kcal, and 100 grams of Cheese on homemade milk will contain about 260 kcal.

If you are a fan of savory tastes, then, following the traditional recipe, you can cook Cheese, for example, with greens, pepper and other spices.

• To do this, add the spice of your choice to the milk until it boils. Additional ingredients, boiled in milk, will give it all its flavor, and then everything is as usual: we throw it in a colander, put it under oppression, etc.
• You can cook Brynza with mushrooms, olives, and bell peppers.

But here you need to understand that raw mushrooms, for example, are cooked much longer than milk. For this reason, they must be pre-boiled before being immersed in milk. Otherwise, undercooked additional ingredients will begin to deteriorate, which will lead to the imminent unsuitability of the Brynza itself.

How to store?

It does not matter at all what kind of Bryndza you have prepared - with or without additives. Both the one and the other option will retain freshness longer, being in the refrigerator, namely in brine. Homemade cheese can be stored in the refrigerator for up to fifteen days. However, it must be remembered that low-salted brine will make the cheese soft and poorly holding its shape. If the solution is too salty, then after 2 days your Brynza will also be excessively salty.

Therefore, in order to preserve the taste of fresh Bryndza for as long as possible, it is very important to maintain the correct proportions of salt in the solution. To do this, use thoroughly washed raw chicken egg. If after adding salt it pops up, then the brine is ready. If not, add salt until it floats.

It happens that cheese, cooked in excess, is not always possible to eat on time. So that it does not disappear, you can send it to storage in freezer. But remember that after defrosting, the structure of the Cheese will be slightly watery, poorly retaining its shape. And most likely, it will become suitable only for making salads.

To avoid oxidation processes, we store cheese in brine in a glass, enamel or plastic container, tightly closing it with a lid.

In cooking, it always happens that something does not go according to plan, so we will introduce you to a few useful tips experienced housewives, allowing to correct some shortcomings of preparation.

• If for some reason you cannot store Cheese in brine, and without it the cheese dries quickly, becoming covered with an unsightly crust, then you can sprinkle the finished product with salt on all sides and store in a dry, tightly closed container in the refrigerator for up to five days.
• It happens that the cheese turned out to be oversalted even at the stage of digestion, and yet storage in salted brine is still to be done. Soaking in fresh milk will help make the cheese less salty (from 2 to 5 hours).
• If the already cooked curd mass is overexposed on the fire, the Brynza will eventually turn out to be tough. For this reason, milk must be constantly stirred during cooking. Better undercooked than overcooked. We keep the undercooked curd mass in a warm saucepan on the stove for about 30 minutes, during which time it will acquire the desired consistency.
• So that Brynza does not become sour, it is better to leave it under pressure in the refrigerator.

For cooking and storage, it is better to use enamel or glassware, which should be high enough so that milk does not splash out when stirred.

Thus, a properly selected method of preparing Cheese at home will allow you to eat it even for those who have contraindications for health reasons. Allergy sufferers, for example, may not be suitable for various flavors and preservatives contained in store-bought products. Brynza made from sufficiently high-calorie homemade milk will be contraindicated for people on a diet. Persons with renal insufficiency may be contraindicated in especially salty Brynza, which is stored for a long time in its own brine.

How to cook Brynza from cow's milk at home, see the following video.