Heat-Acid-Set Cheese
2022-08-02
Process
- Put expired milk into a pot
- Squeeze one (large) lemon per gallon of milk into it
- Boil for 20-30min, making sure to stir frequently (especially at the beginning) and reduce heat if it foams up.
- After boiling, strain the liquid out, put into a container.
- It’s best to repeatedly strain and press trapped liquid out of the fats.
- Throw in fridge, keeps a week or two.
The milkfats ("curds") should separate during boiling and be "fluffy" rather than hard. The liquid parts should be a yellowish color (which is normal).
Uses
It’s a soft acid-set cheese, not a substitute for cheddar or gouda. This is more like cottage cheese or ricotta; something you’d mix in with pasta or salad. It’s largely tasteless, and if you press it well enough can act as a tofu substitute.
Background
This started as an experiment with a full half-gallon jug of milk that went bad during a trip, and wanting to try making something useful out of what had become (essentially) garbage. I’ve always hated throwing out old milk, and the anxiety of buying "too much" milk and worrying about throwing it out and wasting money has always been something that prevents me buying much at all.
Most cottage cheeses are naturally curdled milk, strained and heated after the curds have formed into balls. That takes a long time, and while it’s a completely passive process (no energy or extra ingredients required), it’s also a little iffy.
Modern milk (as opposed to raw milk) is pasteurized and completely sterile when you buy it, it goes bad from pathogens sneaking into the jug after you’ve opened it (or, sometimes, just because it’s not perfectly sealed or the jug wasnt properly sterilized). Those pathogens aren’t from the milk, though, and it’s not always obvious what sort of toxins they’ll be secreting.
This is contrasted with raw milk souring, in which the bacteria convert the sugars in milk into acids (much like what happens with sourdough bread and carbohydrates), which is a more reliable process. Pasteurization is meant specifically to combat that process, because people want milk not curds and cheeses.
The process i use (above) is broadly similar to a paneer (an Indian cheese, derived from Portugese soft cheeses). All the soft cheeses are roughly similar - milk gets curdled, heated, and strained. The exact acid used (if any), the amount of time to set (if any), and the straining process vary greatly. But it’s all the same stuff.
