Do-it-yourself dishes are much nicer than groceries bought at the store. After all, the composition of homemade food is always known, their freshness is not a concern, in contrast to grocery stores. For example, curd cheese is a perishable product. So that it remains suitable for food for a long time, manufacturers add various additives to it that prevent spoilage of food. As a result, the product can stand on the shelves for months. What freshness can we talk about?
Pick your recipe
Cottage cheese is a very tasty product, snacks with it are "flying away" from the table one of the first. But since good quality cheese is not cheap in stores, not everyone can afford to buy it constantly. But there is a solution: you can cook this dish at home with your own hands. The cost of such a meal will be many times lower, and the taste and usefulness will be several times higher than the store ones.
There are many recipes for making cottage cheese, following which you can get different products from each other, not only to taste but also to consistency. Therefore, if you want to cook a soft creamy, hard classic, melted with various additives or other cheeses from cottage cheese, I advise you to familiarize yourself with simple recipes.
Curd Cheese: Cooking Tips
Most cottage cheese cheeses are cooked within 30-40 minutes, most of the time (up to a day) is spent on cooling and solidification of the product. And so that the process of cooking the meal goes like clockwork, and the product itself turns out to be tasty and as useful as possible, it is important to adhere to certain rules for cooking it:
- For the preparation of cottage cheese, you should use only fresh homemade cottage cheese of medium and low fat content or perishable friable low-fat store cottage cheese (curd mass and curd product will not work);
- it is desirable to cook food in a thick-bottomed container with non-stick coating;
- To give the cheese a round shape, you should use equipment specially designed for this, if it is not there, you can use improvised kitchen utensils - a colander (sieve) and gauze.
Cream Cheese Curd
The easiest cream cheese recipe. When preparing a product does not require any special skills.
Ingredients:
- 1 kg of cottage cheese of medium fat content;
- a tablespoon of Italian herbs (or any flavorful seasoning to your taste);
- 2 eggs;
- 2 tsp soda;
- 200 grams of oil;
- teaspoon of salt (5 grams).
Recipe:
In the bowl, mix the cottage cheese (you can first wipe it a couple of times through a sieve), soda, butter and eggs. Beat these ingredients with a blender until smooth.
If a thin-bottom stewpan is used for cooking, install it on a steam bath and boil the curd-egg mass until it becomes viscous and shiny. Achieve complete dissolution of the curd lumps.
Add salt and seasoning to the finished hot mass, mix well and pour into molds or into one large form. Let the product cool for three to five hours.
Light curd cheese
Ingredients:
- 500 grams of low-fat cottage cheese (2% is suitable);
- 5-7 grams of salt;
- 2-3 cloves of garlic;
- half a glass of sour cream 10%;
- a small bunch of dill or parsley.
Recipe:
Chop greens and garlic as small as possible, grind these ingredients in a mortar. Mix cottage cheese with sour cream, salt and a mass of herbs and garlic. Leave the curd cheese at room temperature for an hour, then put it in the refrigerator. Store in a tightly closed container.
The product is suitable for those who follow the figure. After all, the calorie content of the dish is only 120-150 kcal, depending on the fat content of the ingredients used.
Curd cheese without milk
Most cheese recipes use milk, but you can cook the dish without this product. Cooking according to the recipe below takes only 30 minutes, but insist on eating at least eight hours.
Ingredients:
- 4 yolks of chicken eggs;
- 10 grams of salt;
- 1 kg of cottage cheese;
- a teaspoon of salt;
- 100 grams of butter (with a fat content of more than 75%).
Recipe:
Melt the butter in the microwave or in a water bath. Mix cottage cheese with soda, salt and yolks.
Place the melted butter and cottage cheese in a thick-bottomed bowl and boil the mixture until the grains of cottage cheese are dissolved (15-20 minutes).
Pour the mass into the mold, after cooling, put it in the refrigerator for at least three hours.
Hard curd cheese
Cheese according to this recipe turns out to be very tasty, moderately salty. Its minus is that it takes two days to ripen. However, if everything is done correctly, then the taste of the product will not disappoint you.
Ingredients:
- a kilogram of cottage cheese (homemade of any fat content);
- liter of milk;
- 100 grams of butter;
- a teaspoon of soda and as much salt;
- 3 eggs (preferably homemade).
Step by step recipe:
Rub the cottage cheese through the sieve several times, achieve complete homogeneity of the product. Put milk on the fire, as it boils, transfer the curd mass into it and boil for a couple of minutes. Do not leave the stove; stir the mixture constantly so that it does not burn.
Throw the curd into a colander, after covering it with several layers of gauze. Leave on for a few minutes.
As soon as the water stops draining from the curd, place it in a metal thick-bottomed container, add salt, soda, eggs, oil to it and mix. Heat the mixture to 80-90 degrees and immediately remove from heat.
Transfer the hot cheese to a gauze-lined enameled pan, set the oppression on it. Important: the hardness of the cheese depends on the stiffness of the oppression.
After three to five hours, drain the liquid released from the cheese, change the press to a heavier one. After a day or two, the dish can be eaten.
Curd cheese from kefir and sour cream
In order not to spoil the cheese, preparing it from these products, it is important to observe the proportions of kefir and sour cream. The main condition is that these ingredients must be equally divided.
Ingredients:
- 500 ml of sour cream;
- 500 ml of kefir (the fatter, the tastier and nourishing the cheese itself will turn out);
- a teaspoon of salt;
- a teaspoon of any spicy herb to taste.
Recipe:
Measure out all products using a measuring cup and a measuring spoon. Stir sour cream, the most common kefir and salt. Cover the sieve with gauze in several layers, then pour the prepared mixture into it. Tie the cheesecloth into a knot, put it on the cheese and put it in the refrigerator for a couple of days, so that the glass gets excess liquid.
After two days, add a teaspoon of any spice to the finished curd mass, mix. Roll a sausage four to five centimeters in diameter from the curd and wrap it in foil. After a couple of hours, the cheese can be eaten.
Important: the addition of spices significantly improves the taste of cheese, without herbs, the product has an unexpressed taste and specific aroma.
