How to Make Cheese

How to Make Cheese Hello, this is Chef John from foodwishes.com and as promised, I’m going to show you how to make your own cheese. That’s right, we’re going to make fresh—some people call it farmer’s cheese, fromage blanc, just fresh white cheese. It’s good is what I call it. Here we go, we got milk, buttermilk, lemon juice and salt. The ingredient amounts are crucial, so make sure you go to the site if you’re not already there and get the amounts. We’re going to pour milk into a heavy bottomed sauce pan on very low heat. Alright, now you want to stir it not constantly but you want to stir it pretty regularly so it doesn’t get a skin or the bottom doesn’t burn and we’re going to slowly bring that up to 175 degrees. Now, you know you’re getting close, you’ll see steam, you’ll see little bubbles on the side of the pan. The safest way is to use one of these thermometers and go up to about 175 and then you know you’re right—man, I need to moisturize or you can just go right before it’s about to simmer and just guess, which is also of course pretty much. As soon as you’re at temperature 175, you’re going to pout in your buttermilk. You’re going to pour in your lemon juice, so we’re going to turn off the heat. You’re just going to stir it real gently and the milk is going to curdle. And basically, what’s going to happen here is it’s going to break down into two things; curds and whey. Curds are the solids that you see there just starting to form, and the whey is that kind of watery liquid that separates away from the curds. Now, if this doesn’t curdle within like 30 seconds, add another teaspoon of lemon juice. You can also use vinegar and by then, it should really start to separate like that. You’re going to let that sit for 10 minutes undisturbed. In the meantime, you’re going to put a colander over a stock pot. You’re going to take some cheese cloth. It’s like the only special equipment you need. I got four layers of cheese cloth. I’m going to push it against the sides of the colander. I’m going to take my cheese curds after the 10 minutes and ladle them into that colander wrapped with a cheese cloth. And the whey is going to drain through and it will just leave you with the curds. Alright, so we’re going to leave it in the colander for five minutes to drain. Now, I’m going to gather that up. I’m going to take a string and just tie off the top because I’m going to hang this over the stock pot, which is easily done by just tying it on to a wooden spoon, and then just hang it right over your stock pot and it’s going to sit for a half hour and that is going to drain out. Alright, so half hour later, you snip off the top with scissors and you unwrap it, and that is cheese. Believe it or not, that’s cheese. Look at those sexy cheese cloth marks. Cheese cloth is like the fishnet stocking kitchen equipment. Alright, I’m going to take my salt. If it’s not salted, it’s going to be flat. I’m going to mix the salt in. I’m going to put that into my Cloche de Fromage and I’m going to just leave it like that overnight to kind of develop the flavors, kind of ripen. You can eat it right away fresh if you want but it’s kind of room temperature. I like it chilled and I like to have it sit overnight. I like to serve it very simply, actually just kind of mold it in little smaller ramekin, turn it out on to a plate. I’m going to put a little bit of olive oil on there just to moisten it and make it a little richer, and some fresh peppers. It should have enough salt, and look at that, just amazingly delicious, fresh tasting, way more trouble than expense in buying it. But it is fresh and it’s homemade cheese, come on. So this can be used any way. You use cottage cheese or cream cheese or ricotta cheese. I like it fresh best. Some people cook things with it, but I like it just to eat it like this on bread and really, really delicious. Now, come on, you got to give that a try. You don’t want to be on your deathbed and your last words are, “I never made cheese.” What did you say? “I never made--” and then you trail off and they never know what you meant. So anyway, make some cheese; milk, buttermilk, salt, lemon, you’re good to go. Anyway, I really hope you give that a try. Check out the site for the exact ingredient amounts, it’s just really critical. And as always, enjoy your cheese.