Homemade feta cheese: a piece of sunny Greece in your kitchen. Perfect Feta Cheese Recipes

Without cheese it is hard to imagine any solemn table or even a daily breakfast! True, at current prices we want to buy it less and less, economically believing that we can spend the very money from buying cheese on a nourishing potato, with the help of which it will be possible to feed a large family.

But what to do if the prices of cheese all rise and rise, while wages remain practically frozen at the same level ?! That's right - to learn how to create a tasty and healthy homemade cheese, because its recipe is extremely easy. Cheese, cooked at home, easily decorate any dish you cooked or vegetable salad. Brynza or feta created by you will become an excellent independent dish if you cut them into slices and serve them with seasonal vegetables, so that’s it!

To prepare 700 g of delicious cheese you will need:

2 liters of fresh milk;

1 pack sourdough cheese;

1 tsp salt.

You can buy cheese sourdough at any pharmacy nearby, it is quite inexpensive! But without it, milk should not be sour. One bag of yeast can be thickened from 1 to 3 liters of milk. Get only homemade milk! Diluted store milk will not turn sour, no matter how much you put ferments into it. Be sure to try the milk before you buy to make sure it is fresh. When you come home, boil the milk until frothy and cool until room temperature. Pour the ladle of milk into a separate glass and pour dry sourdough into it. Stir until completely dissolved and pour into the bulk.

Now, the fermented milk should stay warm for at least 7-9 hours while the live bacteria produce cheese for you for the milk. To do this, pour the milk back into jars or other containers - the smaller the size of the containers, the faster the milk will break down into cottage cheese and whey. Place the jars in heat and cover with lids. This is best done at night, so that by morning you can re-engage in cheese.

As soon as you see that the whey has separated, take a clean gauze or a clean towel and put them in a colander, trying to wrap a little at the edges.

Place the colander in a saucepan and pour one can into it. The whey will be drained down to the pan, and the curd will remain in a colander. Do the same with the second tank.

Then wrap the edges of the fabric and tie them together. Thus, the cottage cheese will remain in a small bag, which is recommended to be hung on the crane or on the crossbar so that all the rest of the whey will drain from it. By the time it takes about half an hour.

As soon as the whey is drained - lower the bag of curd back into the colander and place it in the bowl, setting the pressure on top. As oppression, you can again take a liter jar filled with water. In this state, your cheese will spend about 1-2 hours.

Then drain the whey from the bowl and add salt to it.

Fill it with boiled water, stir well and put a bag of cheese in it. Leave it in salted water for about 1-2 hours - during this time the cheese will absorb the necessary amount of salt and become very tasty and slightly salted.

Take out your cheese home made and cut it into slices. And if you decide to cook a Greek salad, then - diced! Serve with greens. Enjoy your meal!

Cost calculation:

And now we will consider how costly it turns out to make cheese at home:

2 liters of milk - 55 rubles .;

1 pack ferments for cheese - 25 rubles.

Total: 80 rubles.

So 700 g of feta cheese or feta you create for 80 rubles, despite the fact that the average cost of 1 kg of such a fermented milk product is about 300 rubles! And if you ferment 3 liters of milk, then just get 1 kg of cheese, while saving 200 rubles!

Fetaks cheese easy to prepare at home. Yes Yes! The famous delicate cheese do it yourself. Meet the simple recipe! Just a few sekretik and you're done!
Cooking time: 19 hours
Servings: 1

Ingredients to the recipe "":

Milk - 3l
Sourdough + enzyme - 1pc.
Salt - on request

How to prepare " Fetaxa cheese at home":
Step 1
Milk is poured into the pan and set to warm up to a warm state. Remove from heat. We introduce a ferment and an enzyme at this stage. After ten to fifteen minutes, mix and send the pan back to the stove. Approximately in 25-50 minutes the mass will thicken.

Step 2
Using a thin spatula or knife, separate it from the walls of the pan. Making strips.

Step 3
Then make cuts for small cubes. This will allow for monitoring the condition of the mass.

Step 4
Use a spatula to mix gently, but do not remove it from the stove for further languishing. This procedure will allow the cottage cheese to become more dense.

Step 5
We lay out a clean gauze on drushlag. We shift the thickened pieces into it.

Step 6
So the cheese will be after the complete draining of whey.

Step 7
Gauze, with cheese roll up and hang for the final removal of excess moisture. Under its own weight, this process will accelerate.

Step 8
Before putting in the form of cheese can be sprinkled with salt. This is optional.

Step 9
After transferring the cheese into the form, it must be left for a day to ripen. And then get ready to try. For better cutting, you can put it in the freezer for a couple of minutes.

Step 10
Cut the cheese into portions and, if desired, roll each into your favorite spices. You can use the classic version - salt.

Step 11
Delicious homemade cheese ready to delight their most delicate taste! Add it to salads or eat it in pure form.

Cheese is a sufficiently nutritious product that is made only from natural ingredients, which is why it is so nourishing and healthy. In addition, it can be eaten every day. Cheeses are highly valued at all times thanks to their unsurpassed and noble taste.

Now there are a large number of different varieties of cheese. Of course, we are more accustomed to those that are sold on the shelves of our stores, and few people have an idea of what they are and how interesting their taste is. There is no exact classification of this product, but among all French species are most appreciated. The cheeses are fresh, boiled and uncooked, soft and hard, with a mold and a crust, as well as feta, which we'll talk about.

Cheese Description

Traditionally, the Greek feta cheese belongs to semi-solid varieties and is made from two types of milk: sheep and goat milk.

If you turn to history, you can find out that in translation from Greek, "feta" means "chunk" or "piece." Why is it that way called cheese? It's simple. Previously, it was always made only one large piece with a weight of about one and a half kilograms.

In appearance, feta cheese resembles fresh and young cottage cheese, because it has the same white color. The special difference is its taste. It is more vivid, expressive, salty and sour.

For the first time, feta cheese was prepared in the times of ancient Byzantium, and references can be seen in the Odyssey text of Homer.

Now in the Middle East, in the Mediterranean countries and southern Europe they produce something similar to feta. But there, for the most part, cow's milk is used for cooking. That is why the name "feta" has the right to only the product prepared in Greece and nowhere else. This name was firmly established for him in 1996. But under the name "fetax" or "fetaki" it is quite possible to meet a similar product - it tastes almost the same, with a difference only in the producing country.

How is feta made?

Since those times when the first mentions of this cheese appeared, the technology of its preparation has not changed much. Previously, the Greeks, of course, did not know what pasteurization was, and therefore they heated goat's milk just outside under the scorching sun. So it stood until it was curtailed. And only after that it was possible to start preparing the serum. And the resulting cottage cheese was placed in a bag of thin light fabric, wrung out and left, so that it dried up, in a dark place.

Next, to make feta cheese, a dried lump was cut into small pieces, salted and left to dry for several more days. In a room where it was dry and warm. After the allotted time, the cheese was placed in small wooden barrels and brine was added. In order for homemade feta cheese prepared according to this recipe to be eaten, one had to wait at least a month, or even more.

Calorie and composition

If you want to use feta cheese during the diet, its caloric content is quite high (at least 250 calories per hundred grams of product), then it is not recommended, otherwise the day of the diet will be lost in vain and you will not lose weight. And the level of fat content of cheese is not far behind and reaches 22 grams. If you really want it, then think about how you can replace feta cheese.

It is better to use it for cooking on holidays or when you just want to pamper yourself. Everyone probably knows that the most common dish using feta is, of course, Greek salad.

But, despite the high calorie and fat content, this product is very useful due to the large amount of vitamins and minerals.

Feta cheese includes a variety of vitamins that are simply necessary for the human body:

vitamin K;
halin;
carotene.

No less in its composition and minerals, among which are: selenium, manganese, iron, copper. As well as zinc, calcium, phosphorus, magnesium and some other types.

Beneficial features

Based on the fact that the product contains such a number of substances, it must have useful and healing propertieswhich have a beneficial effect on the person and his body. The way it is. American scientists, having made some research using feta cheese, found that, besides all of the above, it also contains microorganisms. They are able to synthesize some antibiotics to help cope with poisoning. That is, occasionally eating feta, you can protect yourself from unwanted effects after taking low-quality products.

A hundred grams of cheese enriches the body with the daily requirement of potassium and phosphorus, and a third fill the need for zinc. It should be noted that feta does not contain nucleic acids, but it also contains a lot of protein - about fourteen grams. This is what makes it different from meat and is considered a more profitable product.

How to choose?

Like any other product, to make feta cheese tasty, you need to choose it correctly. There are a few rules, observing which, you will certainly buy quality productthat will delight you with your taste.

If you want to taste feta as it should be, then buy the product only from the Greek production. You can buy it in Greece without problems, it is in every store. But the fact is that there are other cheeses that have the name of feta, but in fact are just a parody of salty taste.
In order not to be mistaken, look at the composition, from which the product is prepared. It must contain sheep's milk, and sometimes a little goat milk, as well as salt and pickle. Note that the amount of goat milk should be no more than thirty percent, otherwise the feta will be very solid. If you like this, then buy just a solid cheese of local production, made from goat's milk.
The composition of the product should not be cow's milk, otherwise it is not feta. If it is, then the taste will not be very pleasant, and the cheese itself will be very crumbly.
Note that feta should only be stored in brine. Maybe it looks outwardly and not very appetizing, but correctly, and as a result, the taste and other properties are preserved. If you bought a lot of feta, it is best to prepare the brine at home for storage. How to do this can be read below.
If possible, try the product before making a purchase. Most often in the markets and in good supermarkets, feta is given to try. The taste is sharp and rich. Do not buy if it is bitter, too acidic or tasteless.
Look at the color; it should be white, not yellow. Cheese takes on such a color if it has been lying on the air for a long time without brine.
The surface of a good and fresh product has a small number of holes. If you want to see visually how a real feta cheese should look, the photos found in cookbooks will help you.

Contraindications

Before you start cooking feta itself, and then various recipes using it, it is recommended that you familiarize yourself with the contraindications for this product.

It is clear that in the first place it is very contraindicated for people who are overweight, as it is very high in calories and fat. But besides this, it is not worth it and those who have hypertension, as well as problems with the kidneys.

What can replace feta cheese if you have one of the limiting conditions, and you really want it? Of course, the most common option is cheese. It is also made on the basis of sheep's milk. It is also stored in brine, but, unlike feta, pressed and has a more salty taste. But much less fatty and high in calories, and therefore it is quite possible to eat it in small quantities during a diet.

Feta cheese at home

In order to prepare this delicacy, we need very few ingredients and enough time and effort.

About ten liters of goat milk.
A quarter of a small spoonful of dry yeast or one hundred grams of liquid.
A half-spoon of rennet enzyme to be mixed with a small amount of water.
A little salt, preferably fine.
Saline, where twenty percent of the salt is dissolved in water.

It is necessary to begin with heating of milk to 30 degrees. Then add the leaven and the lipase in the powder to the milk, mix everything well. Cover and leave to stand for about an hour.

What happened, you need to cut into small pieces the size of a centimeter and wait about ten minutes. Now try to mix the diced cubes and check the temperature of the milk. If it is cold, then it must be heated again to thirty degrees. Stir the cubes slowly at first, and then more intensively, if you notice that they have become harder and stick together.

After this time, untie the bag, turn the cheese down with the head and let it hang for another day. After that, cut it into medium-sized pieces, place in brine and soak in a feta in it.

Prepare the pickle is simple enough: dilute in warm water a little salt and stir so that it dissolves in water. It should not be very salty. If you do not want a pickle, it has something to replace. Feta cheese can still be stored in olive oil, but, as a rule, it is wasteful and even more caloric due to the increase in fat content. Therefore, the salt solution is more suitable for storage, and even cheaper.

What to cook with feta?

It is clear that first of all with the use of feta, very tasty salads are obtained, for example, the same Greek salad, which is considered the most popular. But what to cook when you want something unusual? Try making baked feta cheese.

Baked Feta Recipe

All you need is feta, tomatoes, garlic and olive oil.

First, take the foil and divide it into several pieces. Place a thinly sliced feta on each one, and on top - tomato slices. Now squeeze a little garlic or grate it on a fine grater and sprinkle everything with a small amount of olive oil. Carefully wrap the foil.

Preheat the oven to a temperature of one hundred and ninety degrees, put the billet on a baking sheet and bake for at least fifteen minutes. The finished dish is recommended to serve along with white crispy bread, which can be cooked in a toaster.

Feta Patties

Cook any yeast dough you like or buy ready-made dough. Boil rice, mix it with cheese and chopped parsley. Roll the circles out of the dough, fill with filling and carefully fix the edges. Fashioned pies can be baked in the oven or fry in a frying pan. Enjoy your meal!

Where else to use cheese?

Feta is an almost universal product, and if you like this taste, you can add it everywhere. She can sprinkle ready-made dishes: potatoes or pizza. You can also make sandwiches with her. It is added to stuffed peppers. And the Greeks are generally combined with melon or watermelon, and they say that it is very tasty. Try it and you! Cheese with tomatoes goes well with spaghetti, beans or lentils. In addition, with it you can even make pies, which are very tender with excellent taste. Feta goes well with any red fish, such as salmon or trout. You can eat it as a separate dish, for example with white wine.

Cheese is not only healthy, but also very tasty. There are many varieties of them, one of which is a tender feta. And you can cook it yourself.

What kind of cheese is that?

Feta is a traditional Greek cheese, usually made from sheep's milk. This product is popular in many regions of the Mediterranean. It is believed that he was known for a long time, and the first mention of him appeared in the Middle Ages. The technology was fairly simple: the milk of the sheep was placed in skins made from animal skins, it was fermented in them, and then, to extend the shelf life, was transferred to the brine from sea water.

Modern production is different from the medieval and consists of several stages. First, the milk is heated and fermented, then the excess liquid is removed from it, after which the mass is packaged and placed in a saline solution, in which it finally matures within two to three months.

Cheese making

How to make feta cheese with your own hands? This can be done in several ways, and the most interesting ones are discussed below.

Method one

Gentle feta can be made from milk. For this you will need:

about 2.5-2.7 liters of milk;
litere of water;
a third of a glass of salt (the amount can be changed, depending on the desired final salinity of the cheese).

Cooking:

Pour the milk into any container and leave it in a warm place for the night so that it starts to ferment. But the product should remain liquid, so do not increase the exposure time.
Heat the oven to 140-150 degrees, put the milk into it, first pouring it into a heat-resistant container
Milk should be fired for about two hours, but not boil, so periodically look into the oven and, if necessary, reduce the temperature.
When the whey separates, you will find a curd clot. It needs to be moved to a colander, previously covered with a cloth or several times folded with gauze.
Leave the cheese for a few hours, put it in the refrigerator, then turn it over to remove the liquid on the other side. If you want the feta to be more dense, then you can put a not very heavy load on it.
Next, prepare the brine by dissolving the salt in water. In this solution, put the cheese mass and leave for at least a week.

Second way

A more tender feta is obtained from the cream. To make it you need:

2 l not very fat cream;
4-5 Art. l natural yogurt;
4 or 5 tbsp. l water;
4 tablets acidin-pepsin (you can replace the rennet);
two art. l salt.

Process description:

Pour milk into the pan, warm it up to about 35 degrees on the stove. Immediately put in the yogurt and stir everything well, and then leave for about an hour in a warm place (you can wrap the container with a towel so that the fermentation starts exactly).
Atsidin-pepsin should be poured with cool water, mix it thoroughly, and then pour in the sour milk and then mix everything up. Next, clean the composition again in a warm place and leave on all night.
The serum should separate (do not rush to pour it, it will come in handy later), and a solid mass should be placed in a colander to allow the remaining liquid to drain.
Curd mix with half a tablespoon of salt, shift into cheesecloth, squeeze again and leave in a cool place for a day to make the cheese matured.
Prepare the pickle. To do this, in the remaining whey serum, enter one and a half tablespoons of salt, stir. In this solution, put the cheese and leave for a few days, so that it is well salted. In such a brine feta can be stored for quite some time.

Third way

Delicious, spicy and light feta cheese can be made from yogurt, but only natural, not containing any additives.

Here is a list of required ingredients:

1 l of fairly thick yogurt;
5 tsp. salts;
lemon;
art. l olive oil.

Process description:

Lemon zest must be grated. Next, mix it with salt (teaspoon), yogurt and butter.
The whole mixture should be moved to a rather thick cloth, then hung over a bowl or put in a colander (it should be put in a container) and sent for two or three days in a refrigerator.
So, serum glass, do not pour it, but add four teaspoons of salt. Place the cheese in this pickle, leave for a couple of days and serve.

Fourth method

Great cheese can come from powdered milk.

Here is what you need:

900-1000 g of powdered milk;
1.5 liters of water;
140-150 ml sour cream;
½ tsp vinegar;
hl salts;
rennet (for example, five tablets "Abomina").

Instruction:

Heat water about 35-37 degrees, dissolve powdered milk in it, break the lumps with a mixer.
In the water (cool) dissolve the enzyme.
Into the warm milk, enter the sour cream, actively stirring the composition, then add water with rennet. Once again, mix everything quickly and thoroughly. Next, add vinegar, and then the mixture is better to whisk.
Composition send for twelve hours in a warm place. You can also wrap the tank blanket.
Place the curd mass in a cloth, squeeze and leave to drain in a colander for several hours (you can put pressure on it).
Next, put the cheese in a pickle (add 4 tablespoons of salt to a liter of water or whey), leave for a few days.

The most delicious feta at home is obtained from fatty, home-made and always fresh milk, as the pasteurized store may not be squashed properly. And if you use a low-fat product, the finished cheese will not be so tender.
Many are interested in how much salt to add to the brine. It all depends on your preferences and the desired final salinity of the product. The average amount is about three or four tablespoons per liter of liquid.
If suddenly you overdo it with salt, do not worry. To correct the situation will allow soaking feta in mineral water or in milk. You can also simply wash the product in boiled water.
If you want to get a delicate and light texture, then you should not put a lot under pressure during the ripening process. And to get a fairly dense feta cheese, which can be added to salads and cut, on the contrary, you will need a press (it will remove all the liquid).
Any recipe can be supplemented with spices to make the product spicy and savory.

Be sure to try your own hands to cook the Greek feta cheese, it's not at all difficult!

Surely each of us was interested in a recipe for making Greek feta cheese at home. Some people want to make cheese on their own, because the prices for it are constantly growing in stores. Others do not trust the quality characteristics of the cheese. And still others are interested in the cooking process itself. Before you learn the process and the nuances in the preparation of Greek feta cheese, we suggest you turn to the history.

Translated from the Greek " fetaIs a piece. And they called this type of cheese like that, because it was originally made in the form of a large piece, whose weight reached 1.5 kg. According to external characteristics, cheese is similar to cottage cheese, as it has the same snow-white color. Significant cheese difference feta in that it is salty and slightly sour. The birthplace of greek cheese feta is ancient Byzantium, it was from there that the recipe and technology of cooking this cheese came to us. Of course, before cheese demanded much more time for its manufacture. For example, in those days, people did not know about pasteurization, so they had to heat the milk under the sun. Milk was used only sheep or goat. In the modern world, the heating phase is faster due to cookers. The Greeks kept the milk under the sun until it curtailed. They folded the curd into a woven bag. The bag was hung in a dark room to dry the curd mass. The dried lump of cottage cheese is then cut into small pieces. These pieces were sprinkled with salt and left for another few days to dry in a warm and dry room. After this time, the Greeks were preparing a special salt solution for cheese. Pieces of cheese dipped in small wooden barrels and poured the prepared solution. Ideally, the cheese should be in the solution for at least a month. This is how they cooked and cooked in Greece, and now consider how you can make feta cheese at home.

Not to say that the result will be instant, but it's worth it. To make cheese you need not too many ingredients. I would like to note that feta cheese belongs to soft cheeses and therefore practically does not require special equipment for cooking. This, in turn, greatly simplifies the task of making cheese at home. The main ingredient for cheese is, of course, goat milk. Chees Feta requires special types of starters, such as powder lipase, mesophilic starter and liquid rennet. Lipase is a water-soluble enzyme that helps digest and dissolve milk fat. Mesophilic sourdough ideal for making feta cheese, as the cheese mass does not heat up more than 40 degrees. Rennet produces coagulation of milk, the result of this process is: a solid clot consisting of fat and casein, and a liquid that includes proteins, milk sugar and salt. Each starter performs its role, so they are very important for making feta cheese. Currently, various types of starter cultures are not so difficult to find; In any online store e, specializing in the field of cheesemaking, a wide range of starters is presented.

So for cooking Greek Feta cheese will need 4 liters of fresh goat milk. Of course, nowadays it is not easy to get goat's milk, especially if you live in the city. Therefore, as an exception, you can use cow's milk, and in the most extreme case, store milk with the highest fat content. In 25 ml of milk must be diluted teaspoon of lipase powder. Pour the rest of the milk into the pan and put on a slow fire. Pour into the pan milk with lipase and stir. Milk is heated to 30 degrees, and in any case not higher. Remove pan from heat and add 1/8 teaspoon of mesophilic yeast to milk. Stir the milk, cover the pan and leave for one hour in a warm place. It is best to cover the pan with a veil to maintain the temperature. Half a teaspoon of rennet must be diluted in 25 ml of water. In this case, the water should be exclusively boiled. Stir the enzyme gently with water until smooth. After an hour, add water with rennet to the milk and stir. Cover the pot again and leave for another hour warm.

The result should be a mass of curd, which should be cut with a knife into small cubes and leave the mass for 15 minutes, and then it can be mixed to separate the whey. Stir cottage cheese need 10-15 minutes to remove the liquid from the cottage cheese.

Cut a piece of gauze, fold it in several layers. Gauze put in a colander and fold the cottage cheese to serum drained. The edges of the gauze to gather together, tie and hang over the pan, it is to accelerate the process of serum flow. Leave to drain for 3-5 hours. Separated serum we still need.

After that, remove the cheesecloth from the curd, as a result there will be a lump of curd. This lump should be cut into pieces, 2-2.5 cm thick, and then cut into cubes. The final stage is the salting of the cheese.

There are two options. At first, the cottage cheese cubes simply fall asleep with a couple of tablespoons of salt and leave in the fridge for 5 days. With this option, the cheese turns out dryish. The second option involves the preparation of saline. Saline solution is prepared from half a liter of serum and 1/3 cup of salt. If you do not want to serum, then the salt can be diluted in warm water. Cottage cheese cubes are poured with this solution and left to stand for about 5 days in the refrigerator. As a result, feta cheese has a more salty taste. Feta refers to high-calorie cheeses, in addition contains many vitamins and minerals that are necessary for the human body.

In principle, if there is fresh goat's milk and all the necessary starters, then cooking cheese at home will not be difficult, as long as there is a desire. As for salt, each person adds salt as much as his tastes allow. In any case, you will not oversalt the cheese, since the excess salt remains on the outer walls of the feta and does not penetrate into it.

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