Homemade young cow's cheese or Zagreb cheese
My sister's mother-in-law in Bjelovar keeps cows, and every weekend when they go to her, her mother-in-law sends a few liters of homemade milk and then we make real homemade cheese. The preparation of this cheese is a bit more time consuming, but that's it, our original dear, real, straight… I promised FF to give the procedure how it is made, so here it is:
Preparation steps
- Read more about this cheese
- Strain the milk through a thick gauze.
- Pour the milk into a wider bowl, preferably enameled or stainless steel, which can be placed in the oven. All dishes, gauze and utensils used in making homemade cheese must be perfectly clean, they must not be washed in detergent, but in hot water, this is very important for the quality and durability of the cheese!
- Leave the milk in a cool place, but not in the refrigerator.
- The milk is slowly acidified by standing, and it floats to the top, separating the fat-cream
- When the fat has separated, which is in about 24 hours, spoon the cream into one bowl.
- Don't worry, the cream will differ nicely from sour milk, except that it has a different texture, ie it is creamy, unlike more compact sour milk, it is also different in color, it is more yellowish.
- Take a knife and make longitudinal and transverse cuts, so that you cut the complete mass into smaller cubes. I note here that the size of the cubes also depends on the amount of whey in it, if the cubes are larger and the whey is more, and if they are smaller the whey in the cheese is less.
- Place the bowl with the milk in the oven, turn it to 100 ° C, and keep it in a preheated oven for about 1 - 1, 5 hours, in fact until the whey floats up and the cheese sinks down
- Increase the heat to 150 ° C, close for another fifteen minutes. Increase again to 200 ° C, and after ten, fifteen minutes turn off. Be careful not to leave it longer and overheat, because then the cheese will be drier and grainy!
- When you have turned off the oven, leave the pan in it to cool overnight.
- When the cheese has cooled, take it out of the oven, it must be completely cold, before it is put in the jars, because if the cheese is warm in the jars, it will be sour later.
- Now take the cooled cheese out of the bowl with a slotted spoon and place it in suitable cheese bowls, taking care not to break too many pieces of cheese, so that they can be seen and leafed nicely.
- Squeeze the cheese lightly with your hand, squeezing the excess whey back into the bowl.
- Put the lids on and store the cheese in the fridge.
- Cheese prepared in this way can easily be refrigerated for 10 days or longer! (but with us there is no chance ..)
Serving
The cream that you separated must be whipped a little with a whisk to combine well and not to separate the whey at the bottom. The cream can stand shorter and need to be used within 5 days. From 2x 5 l of milk, I got 5 pieces of cheese of half a kg, no I have to measure, each bowl has so much, I still got 1, 5 jar of 700 g of cream and 1, 5 l of very healthy whey. Everything can be used here, it is very good and very profitable. Otherwise, IM does not have this cheese, except for the packaged one, and my children adore it, so I buy homemade cow's milk there for 6 kn per liter and make the cheese myself. If you know how much this cheese costs (between 12 and 15 kn / for half a kg), everything is clear ... fine, but cheap, my own master.
