The final curds should be cooked well through and should be examined to make sure that enough moisture has been removed. A broken curd should be firm throughout and the curds should have a moderate resistance when pressed between the fingers. The dry curds can now be transferred to a colander lined with butter muslin. They should be allowed to drain for 30 minutes and a gentle stirring will make sure that the whey drains off.
Once the curds drain for a short time the cloth can be gathered, tied securely and hung for the final drainage. This can be done for several hours and even overnight, depending on how dry you want the final cheese. The curds now need to be chilled and separated. I do this by filling the pot with cold water and submerging the curds in its cloth bundle in the cold water this makes it easier to drain them again.
Separate the curds well while in the cold water. Then drain the curds again. Repeat this again but with ice water and allow the curds to remain in the water for 30 minutes while separating the curds. Allow the curds to drain well in a colander. You may notice that the finished curds have consolidated somewhat but they are easy to separate. Sprinkle this over the surface evenly then mix into the curds well.
Salt is not really needed here for the process because the final acidity is enough to stop the bacteria from working. So if you are looking for salt free, this is a good cheese for you. Adding herbs or spice is a great alternative to augment the flavor in a salt-free cheese.
Your Cheese is now ready for storage but you can make any additions you like by adding fresh herbs, spices, etc. If you would like a richer cottage cheese, then adding a small amount of Heavy Cream will make it into a much richer cheese.
Let your taste be your guide on this. You can now sit back and enjoy your very own dish of Cottage Cheese or just pack it into a sanitized container for the fridge. That's it, time for lunch and for me to enjoy a fresh batch of Cottage Cheese with chives and cream added.
This was a cheese made for generations by our grandmothers at the back of the wood stove on the farm but most recently it is found as a commodity in the grocers dairy aisle. Now you can make it just as easily at home in your kitchen and most folks are quite surprised at how good it can be. A low fat version of. Cottage Cheese has a long history and because of this it has evolved into a variety of styles. It was originally made on the farm from the family cow s. It was often made from older milk in which the natural bacteria had already started to work.
The milk would be brought in and placed in a warm place near the fire, behind the wood stove, or in the warming oven. Then after a day or so the natural bacteria would produce enough acid to cause the milk to form a curd. This was then cut, cooked to a dry curd, then washed with cold water.
The finish was a cold dry curd with a tangy flavor. At some point someone realized that the taste improved with the addition of some cream to make the much richer tasting creamed cottage cheese. In the days when farmers brought their milk to the cheese dairies by horse and wagon, the process was sometimes slow and the milk was not very fresh, especially in warmer weather. By the time this milk arrived at the dairy, the milk had already developed too much acidity to make a good cheese such as Cheddar and the only use for this already acidified milk was to make Cottage Cheese.
The primary process in making Cottage Cheese involves good dairy bacteria converting lactose to lactic acid. This lactose or milk sugar is an important component in our milk but unless it is converted by a good quality dairy bacteria, some off flavors or worse may result. Several hours after the bacteria culture activity begins, the milk acidity increases to the extent that the milk coagulates into a solid gel which can be cut into small curds. This resulting curd is then cooked until the moisture is released and a dry curd is formed.
Then this curd is chilled to the final cottage cheese as we know it. A final optional cream dressing may also be added to increase the richness and texture and this then becomes the Creamed Cottage Cheese. I followed their recipe for Cottage Cheese to the letter, and even after the recommended "Cook the Curd" time of 90 minutes at F, all I had want lumpy yogurt.
THEN I watched a video on YouTube from a guy that also uses recipes from this site, and he did two identical batches using storebought milk, one with calcium chloride and one without calcium chloride. One made cheese. The other made a creamy cracker spread. For your next batch, try waiting a bit longer.
Also, be sure not to disturb the mixture — you want the curd to set I disturbed so it can form larger clumps. That can happen for a few reasons but it is usually is because of an iffy thermometer. To check yours, clip the thermometer to the side of a pot of water and bring it to a full, rolling boil. Let it boil for 5 minutes to get the best reading. Can you use buttermilk? Do you have a ricotta recipe from what posted somewhere?
I used lemon juice instead of vinegar. Lovely flavour. Thank you for experimenting with lemon juice. Why is your temperature so much higher? But as for mine, the milk needs to reach just below boiling to make cottage cheese. Great and well explained recipe! Just made a nice amount of cottage cheese.
It is wonderful. If you do, please let me know your results! I chose to make my own cottage cheese to save buying plastic containers every week that I have to find uses for at home. Going to try it in my oatmeal too. I wonder if others are getting tiny curds because theyre not sqeezing the ball tight enough to lose extra water? I squeezed until I felt it start to firm up into the ball.
Your idea about the cause of the small curds is a good one. Do you have nutrtional breakdown for the cottage cheese Calories, g Fat, Protein, Carbs? Or will it be similar to any full-fat manufactured product?
Thank you so much for this simple recipe and clear responses to what might be the cause of aberrations in results Katie! I used to know just by constant practice, how to make good cottage cheese every time when I had my own Jersey cow and plenty of milk and cream and wanted to use it all up.
Times have changed and now I buy milk from the store like most people and I forgot what I used to know almost instinctively. So thank you so much Katie for keeping it simple and helping me make this simple useful cheese once again. So lovely! Thank you for taking the time to leave such a wonderful review. Thank you for your recipe. It worked perfectly. I planto use this whey to make ricotta. Can I then still use the whey that is left from making the ricotta?
Not sure how many times you can reheat and add acid to the whey before it goes bad or tastes too much acidic to be used. At some point, like you suggested, I think it would start tasting too acidic.
I used organic fat-free milk, followed your instructions and it produced a lump rather than curds after letting it sit and separate for 30 minutes. Sounds like you may have been a bit vigorous breaking up the ball in the cheesecloth. Thanks for your reply, Katie. And it really was a lump coming out of the pot, so it was a matter of leaving it as one lump or breaking it into the smaller pieces. I might try it once more, maybe heating it more slowly. Also might check my thermometer as you suggested in another reply.
Hi again Katie,. So glad you like it, Debra! Yes, I am vegan and use soy milk with the same recipe. Works great every time. Just make sure it is unsweetened soy milk.
Hi Katie, In Poland we eat cottage cheese practically every day, so lots of choice in stores. It sounds to me just like my Mum used to do you make it. Thank you so much! Is the rinsing step necessary? I am letting it sit in the cheesecloth now and it looks good enough to me already! I use this recipe quite a bit, but I got it from a website calling it mozzarella.
I always make it from reconstituted powdered full cream milk, and it works fine. I make crumbly by washing or creamy by leaving in some whey. Flavoured with fruit and eaten with sweet biscuits it is very nice. With creamy I press it into a round pastry cutter and leave in the fridge until a thin crust forms. Hope this is useful. Thanks for the recipe, I am definitely going to give this a try. Is that correct? Also, for others in Canada, milk may have the acronym UHT on the label to indicate ultra high temperature pasteurization.
Thanks for much for the speedy reply. Now I can give this a try today because I do have whole milk. Much appreciated. Thank you so much for this easy peasy recipe. I love cottage cheese, and I am excited to make it myself. Am considering infusing w rosemary to serve w strawberries. Have you tried something like that? The website I linked to in the article explains how to do it.
As the note says, the nutritional data is calculated by software that does not take into account the extraction of the whey. Thus, there are calories in a serving. The recipe card reflects that the serving size is 0.
Katie Can I use non dairy coffee creamer instead of heavy cream……like French vanilla? Sounds interesting! Many thanks for your recipe I made cheese by adding lemon juice It came out very nice.
But the other two batches from the remainder of the milk did Is there anything I can do to make the first batch into cottage cheese or too late. Thank you so much for this!
I was blown away by how much better it is compared to store-bought. I am not sure though if I squeezed out too much because I had to add 6 Tbsp of cream to make it moist. Should I just need to give it a gentle squeeze next time during the final rinse and not eliminate all the liquid out of it? Since I had those unfinished kinds of milk past due their best-by dates, I just thought it saved me in many ways. Sometimes that happens. Cottage cheese is made by adding an acid to pasteurized milk which causes a separation of the milk solids from the whey.
This can be done by adding a bacterial culture that produces lactic acid or a food-grade acid such as vinegar. After the curd is formed, it is gently cut into pieces that allow additional whey to drain from the curds.
The curds are further cooked and pressed gently to expel more whey. The curds are rinsed and salt is added. Cottage cheese is high in protein and is a good source of riboflavin. Although it contains calcium, much of it is lost in the separation of whey.
Some cottage cheese products are fortified with calcium. Because of its light, fresh character, cottage cheese is often eaten in salads with fresh fruit and vegetables and as a healthy, convenient, high-protein snack.
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