Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Buttermilk & Cottage Cheese

I owe a few people recipes. Quite a few actually. And most people, especially my friends will not buy my excuse of being busy. So here’s a couple of basic recipes to pacify them while I attempt to find time to sit down and write the rest of the more complicated ones.

p/s: this post is dedicated to a friend whom I once shared a joke about laban or buttermilk with. Here's to never spilling laban again.



Buttermilk

250ml fresh milk (UHT works too, but don't use lowfat, you won’t get it right, believe me I tried)
1 tablespoon white distilled vinegar

  • Add vinegar to the milk, stir well. 
  • Leave about 10 minutes, the buttermilk will thicken slightly.
  • It’s ready for use now.




Cottage Cheese 

1 liter of milk
2 tablespoons of lemon juice /white distilled vinegar
Salt to taste
 

  • Heat milk in a pan until hot but not boiling, stirring to make sure it doesn’t burn.
  • Cool the milk for a few minutes then add the lemon juice/vinegar.
  • Stir & let the milk separate into curd and whey. Whey is the watery liquid while the curd is the milk solid that has reacted to the heat & acid.
  • Line colander with cheese cloth/muslin, strain when cheese has cooled to room temperature, saving the whey if you are using it for your baking, otherwise just discard.
  • Squeeze out as much as the whey as possible from the cheese while it’s still in the cheesecloth and rinse under running water for a couple of minutes.
  • Salt the curd to taste. Voila! You have your home-made cottage cheese that’s almost always taste better than the store bought ones.
  • For richer and creamy cottage cheese, add cream to the cheese, you’ll get taste and texture similar to ricotta cheese.
  • You can further flavor the cottage cheese with freshly cracked pepper, chives or any other herbs or spices.

2 comments:

Ciknoni said...

Cottage cheese can be used for cooking lasagna too right?

Faten Rafie said...

Yes, you can use cottage cheese to replace ricotta cheese in savory dishes. However cottage cheese doesn't melt, so you shouldn't use it as topping on the lasagne.