Messy are the Cheesemakers



Someone else's halloumi. Not my halloumi, as I ate it all before remembering to take a photo.



This week I made my first foray into the mysterious world of cheesemaking. I always assumed this was very complex and involved huge amounts of equipment, white coats, stainless steel vats, and temperature monitoring to rival NASA. But then I realised, hang on, much like yoghurt, cheese is just gone-off-milk, and that is something I acquire regularly in my house without even trying. So I decided to have a go.

I started simple, with halloumi.

Squeaky Cheese (as it is correctly known), should really be made with sheep or goats' milk, however since the former is tricky to get in West Norwood and the latter is horrible, I went with full fat cow juice.

First, you throw all the milk in a pan (I used 4 pints, as any less isn't really worth the bother) and heat it gently to 35C. The fishtank thermometer finally earned its keep here, but to be honest it's really just blood temperature, so if you put a finger in and you can't feel hot or cold, that's about right.

Then drop in some rennet, according to the instructions on the packet. The Vegeren that I had only had a recipe for junket, and I was using four times the amount of milk specified for that recipe, and wanted cheese, not junket (has anyone even eaten that since 1957 anyway?), so I just guessed and sloshed in four-and-a-bit times as much. I also left out the strawberry flavouring.

Put the lid on the pan and wait for half an hour or so, poking it intermittently to see if anything's happening. Just as you start to despair, the milk will separate into curds and whey. I didn't take a picture as, frankly, it looks dishearteningly like baby sick at this point. You then pour the whole lot into a big sheet of muslin. Then - if you're me - you must stand there while you realise that you don't have any string within reach and thusly no way of hanging it up without making an unholy mess.

Make an unholy mess.

Return with string taken from an old gift bag (I knew there was a reason we were keeping those), tie the muslin parcel up and hang it from a cupboard door over the pan for 24 hours.

Meanwhile, take a pint or so of the whey that drips from the muslin and put it in the fridge with 2 or 3 teaspoons of salt in it.

Stay awake most of the night waiting for the splash that means that the gift-bag string has snapped and the whole proto-cheesy abomination has fallen off and covered the kitchen in sour milk.

The next day - assuming the last bit didn't happen - unwrap the muslin to reveal what is now mozzarella-textured, white cheese. It tastes quite nice - not 'cheesy' as such but sort of creamy and bland. It is essentially paneer at this point; the last stage is what makes it Squeaky Cheese.

Put the pan - with the whey that drained out of the cheese in the night - back on the heat and bring to the boil. Carefully place slices of the cheese into the whey and boil gently for about 20-30 minutes. It won't look or feel much different when it comes out, but once it's cooled, put it in a sealed container and cover with the brine you made the day before. After a few hours - presto! Squeaky Cheese! The four pints of milk made the equivalent of about two packs of the commercial stuff.

It gets saltier and more halloumi-eqsue the longer it is left in the brine, and apparently will keep for a good couple of weeks. I've had it 5 days so far and it's tasting yummy.

Now at least if I ever meet Alex from Blur I'll have something to talk about.

I believe in the Baby Cheeses

This post was originally going to be titled 'Whey-hey!'. Be thankful for small mercies.

Another dairy success today, this time in the form of some lovely yoghurt cheese, made simply by leaving the raw yoghurt in a muslin to drain for 24 hours. An entire litre of milk drained down to make about 500g of pure white, creamy yumminess:

It looked a but like mozzarella but is actually more like the texture of Philadelphia. Not being a 'true' cheese, it doesn't taste particularly..well..cheesy, but rather has a very fresh, clean creamy taste that could swing towards either sweet or savoury depending on what you put on it. A bit like creme fraiche.

So another successful addition to the list of 'things I shall no longer hand over my hard-earned to Mr Supermarket for' - cream cheese. In your FACE, Sainsbury's. (I choose to tactfully overlook the several extra gallons of milk I'm buying from them per week).

'But', I hear you cry (if I listen very carefully), 'if one litre of milk went into this and a mere tiny pot of cream cheese came out, what happened to the rest of the milk? By what alchemy is it disappeared?'.

What a good question. I'm glad you've been paying attention.

This process resulted in over a pint of 'leftover' whey. This stuff may look like a sample taken from someone who has been told by their doctor to start ringing round all their past partners, but it's actually full of goodness.

Whey is about 25% protein (apparently), and is the same stuff that is dried and powdered to make those very expensive (and a bit gay), bodybuilding shake things. It basically contains most of the goodness and vitamins of the raw milk, but with the fat taken out. If it weren't for the fact that the term is entirely made up by pretend doctors, I would call it a Superfood.

So, waste not want not. A quick trawl of the interwebs confirms that this unicorn nectar can be used in place of milk or buttermilk in baking. An idea was born. And it was a good one.

'Buttermilk' Cinnamon Scones

What you put in

8 oz self-raising flour

1.5 oz butter

1.5 oz sugar

5fl oz whey

1 tsp cinnamon

Pinch salt

What you do with it

Rub the butter into the flour till it resembles breadcrumbs.

Stir in the sugar, salt and cinnamon

Mix in the whey and draw together to form a soft dough. (This is a tried and tested scone recipe I always use - if you don't have whey or buttermilk you can just use the same amount of regular milk).

Roll out to 2cm thick and cut with a small cookie cutter. Tip - when cutting scones out, never twist the cookie cutter. It'll make the scone rise unevenly.

Bake for 12 minutes at 220C.

What you get

12 very tasty scones, and burnt fingers from being too impatient to cut them open and try them. An interesting side effect of using whey instead of milk was that they didn't come out as white as they normally would, instead they were a pleasing wholemealy colour which made them look healthy even though they certainly didn't taste it (something all food should aspire to, if you ask me).

I ate mine with a dollop of the yoghurt cheese, some of my good friend Warmbreadandhoney's delicious homemade orange, vanilla and honey marmalade, and a generous sprinkling of satisfaction at having created such a delicious monster.

Plus, everyone knows that homemade food has no calories, so everyone's a winner.