My SO’s company handles food. Sometimes that food goes bad. In this case, they got a whole shipment of milk days away from its expiration date (at which point they can’t serve it, and local food pantries very sensibly won’t accept it). Luckily, they’re not committed to dumping it down the drain, and they’ll let us take it.
Sometimes it’s still okay to drink, but usually we take it so we can make farmer’s cheese. This is a soft, mild cheese which makes an awesome dip/spread, or which is useful as an ingredient in other foods. It’s super easy, and requires no aging, just heat and vinegar. This was our biggest batch yet.
We normally use this recipe: https://www.olgainthekitchen.com/homemade-farmers-cheese/ though we add additional seasonings depending on how we plan to use the cheese.
Step one is to bring the milk up to temp. The recipe will have more details, but the important thing is to stir it to keep the milk from burning and not to bring it all the way to a boil. We wait until there’s a sort of bubble froth along the edge of the pot.
Once it’s hot, its time to mix in the vinegar. You want 1/2 cup of vinegar per gallon of milk. Stir it and you’ll immediately see the milk separate into clumpy white curds, and the thin yellow whey. If it doesn’t separate, hey just add more vinegar.
Strain it through a siev or cheesecloth. You can speed things up by squeezing it a bit, but be careful since it’ll be hot.
Let it drain a bit and you’ve got farmer’s cheese. You have tons of options from here. You can keep draining it in the fridge if you want it kinda crumbly, or you can run it through the food processor with a bunch of seasonings to make a nice smooth, spreadable dip. We have a cheap jalapeno cilantro mix we really like for making a dip for crackers. You can also use it as a filling for stuffed shells, or mix it into a white sauce for pasta.
Alternatively, leave it unseasoned and use it to make syrniki, a kind of traditional Russian cheese pancake which is really good. (I’ve posted about this previously here: https://imgur.com/a/vqk4r4B and the recipe is here: https://www.alyonascooking.com/syrniki-recipe-cheese-pancakes/ )
Like I said, this is our biggest batch yet. Five and a half gallons of milk condensed down to one large bag of cheese. Our plan is to portion off enough for any meals that’ll use it this week, and then to freeze the rest.
This is what is called Paneer in Indian cuisine, though you have to hang it in a cheesecloth to make it firm for an hour or two to get the right amount of firmness. You can make many awesome dishes out of it like Palak paneer or grilled _Paneer tikka_which turns out great even in an air fryer.
That’s so cool, you’ll have cheese for days!
That is surprisingly simple! I’ll have to give it a go some time! Thanks for sharing
Happy to! It’s a useful one
You can never have too much cheese!
You can make ricotta the same way, but it seems that more commonly uses lemon juice
Why can’t they serve milk if it’s still days away from expiration?
They can and did. But it was more than a week’s worth of milk at their usual consumption and the clients couldn’t drink it all in the few days available. I was trying to explain how they ended up with so much expired milk all at once.
Sorry if the wording was ambiguous, I’d meant they couldn’t serve or donate it on the expiration date but it arrived too close to that to serve it all.
Ahh gotcha
What do you do with the whey?
You can mix it into flour to make bread instead of water. It adds a nice flavor.
In the summer we give some to our tomatoes, and sometimes we’ll cook with it
