Cheese and feta: with benefit and pleasure

Brynza and feta are the favorite cheeses of true connoisseurs of gourmet food and gourmets. Why do we love them so much? Where does their history come from? What is the cooking technology and consumption in different countries of the world? About this in our article.

Brynza is a pickled cheese made from sheep's milk. Usually white in color, it looks like cottage cheese. Feta is a traditional, surprisingly tasty Greek cheese made from sheep's or goat's milk, white in color.

The birthplace of feta cheese

In 2005, the Greeks managed to win the unique right to call their national soft, salty cheese feta, and this decision was supported by the European Union. However, Greece still accounts for only a small share of the European cheese market, which is dominated by Denmark and Germany. The Greeks produce feta, which has been widely popular in the country for 6 thousand years, from a mixture of sheep and goat milk. Residents of the country consume about 100,000 tons of this product per year.

History of feta cheese

Nomadic peoples engaged in cattle breeding were the first to learn how to prepare cheese. It was, as the legend says, more than four thousand years ago. The Arabian shepherd, having poured milk into his wineskin in the morning, set out to drive his flock to a new pasture. All day long he drove the sheep across the hot steppe. In the evening, when he opened the wineskin, the shepherd found no milk in it. But there was a watery liquid in which a white “pancake” was flopping around. The Arabian tasted the “pancake.” This is how humanity became acquainted with cheese. This, of course, was not quite cheese yet, but it was very, very similar.

The next task facing the nomads was storing the new product. This is where they came up with the idea of ​​pressing cheese heads into wineskins or ceramic vats (jugs) and filling them with salt water or grape juice. This is how feta cheese was born.

Bryndza preparation technology

Interestingly, the technology for making cheese has not changed much since then. True, milk is now used not only from sheep, but also from goat, cow, or even mixtures. Just as the ancient nomads did, today’s masters salt cheese curds, shape them, lightly press them and immerse them in salty brine for a certain period of time. This is how all pickled cheeses are prepared, including feta cheese.

Bryndza is made from cow, sheep and goat milk, and best of all from a mixture of them. Take whole and skim milk in equal quantities and mix, then filter through 3-4 layers of gauze, pasteurize at a temperature of 85 degrees, cool to 28-30 degrees, after which a bacterial starter for cheese is added to the milk in an amount of 0.5% and fermented with rennet.

Rennet is prepared from the rennet of calves and lambs slaughtered before the age of 1 month. It is better to use rennet to prepare the enzyme 3-4 months after drying it. Rennet starter can also be prepared from dry rennet powder, which is produced industrially. After fermentation, the milk coagulates within 20-30 minutes. The readiness of the curd is determined in the same way as for making cottage cheese.

Then the curd is laid out in thin slices on a table or in a sieve covered with a dense material, cut with a blunt knife into cubes 2-3 cm in size, the mass is wrapped in the material, a stone is placed on top and left for 4-5 minutes for the whey to drain. The weight of the stone is equal to the weight of the mass. After this, the material is unrolled and the raw mass is cut a second time in the same way as the first time. After 15 minutes, the raw mass is cut 3 times, tied again and a load is placed on top. This time the raw mass lies under a canopy for 50-60 minutes.

Before the fourth pressing, the edges of the raw mass are only cut off into strips 5-6 cm wide. The cut strips are crushed and placed in the recesses formed in the middle of the layer from the knot with which the curd was pulled together during pressing. The fabric is pulled tightly over the wet mass, the ends of the fabric are placed in an envelope