# Cottage Cheese?



## sss3 (Jul 15, 2007)

Saw on BWH where Jackie Clay made Cottage Cheese using fresh milk and ACV. Can I use regular pastuerized milk? That's all I have available.


----------



## commonsense (Jun 1, 2008)

It should work with pasteurized milk.


----------



## sss3 (Jul 15, 2007)

Nothing happened.


----------



## suzyhomemaker09 (Sep 24, 2004)

I see this...

http://www.thecookinginn.com/cottagecheese/cottagecheese3.html 

that is not cottage cheese as most people think of it...it's more like ricotta.


----------



## Mountain Mick (Sep 10, 2005)

Hi Sandra Spiess

this one is from http://schmidling.com/making.htm

I made this cheese heaps of times and it works very time. hope it helps MM

BARE BONES
The following recipe represents the ultimate in simplicity in cheese making. It will produce a delicious cottage cheese that resembles ricotta and is excellent fresh or used in cooking Italian dishes such as lasagna. We recommend that beginners start with a cottage cheese to get the feel for the basics and for the instant gratification of being able to enjoy the product immediately.


Ingredients: 

1 gallon 2% milk
1/2 cup vinegar
1 tsp salt

1. Heat the milk to 190F. You will need a thermometer for other cheeses but you can get by here turning off the heat just before the milk begins to boil.

2. Add the vinegar and allow the mixture to cool.

3. When cool, pour the mixture, (which now consists of curds and whey as in Miss Muffet food) into a colander and drain off the whey. 

4. Pour the curds into a bowl and sprinkle on the salt and mix well. You may wish to use less salt or more. It is simply a matter of taste which is the next step. You can add a little cream for a silky texture. 



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


COMMENTS:
What we have just made is really cheese but short circuits the process in several ways. The vinegar provides the acid that causes the milk to curdle and produces the acid flavor. The traditional method of producing the acid is to use a culture of acid producing bacteria. This is more complicated and takes longer but as it is alive, the cheese will continue to improve in flavor with age. This is of little consequence in a cheese made for immediate consumption. More on cultures later.
We have also made small curd cottage cheese because we left out another ingredient called rennet. This is an enzyme the produces a harder curd. It was originally made from calf stomachs but is now synthesized and available in liquid or tablet form. I believe the cottage cheese sold in supermarkets as large and small curd is a fiction because the ingredients on the label for the two products are exactly the same. More on rennet later.

Because both the bacteria and rennet can be destroyed by temperature, the traditional process requires several ripening steps at lower temperatures and a curd cooking step at a higher temperature. Because vinegar is inactive, we went immediately to the cooking stage and saved a lot of time.

Finally, the difference between soft cheese and hard cheese is that the latter requires pressing the drained curds in a cheese press, drying the pressed cheese and then aging for several months.


----------



## melco (May 7, 2006)

Mountain Mick,
I like your recipe. Simplicity at its best. Can you tell me how much cheese this produces and can I cut it in half?  Thanks.
Oh, do you think I could do this with goat milk?


----------



## jwal10 (Jun 5, 2010)

Yes goats milk makes the best cheese, add cream for cottage cheese, just curds as fresh cheese or let them dry some for good tasty cheese curds, on pizza or sprinkled over noodles. Add some snipped chives, OH BOY....James


----------



## Mountain Mick (Sep 10, 2005)

Hi melco

yes jwal10 is spot on add a little cream to it and yummo. and works great on goats milk. MM


----------



## pfaubush (Aug 17, 2009)

This may sound like a dumb question, but can the whey from this be used to make ricotta?


----------



## jwal10 (Jun 5, 2010)

I eat a small amount of cottage cheese every day made from goats milk. Fresh fruit with the juice mixed in makes a great breakfast. A teaspoon of honey drizzled on top of fresh cottage cheese curds is excellent on a buttermilk biscuit. 60% of my daily food is from goats milk, cheese, cottage cheese, yogurt, ice cream, butter, cream, buttermilk and the milk. I use a quart of fresh goats milk a day, Monday is yogurt, tuesday is cheese, wed is butter. ....James


----------



## tinknal (May 21, 2004)

Mountain Mick said:


> Hi Sandra Spiess
> 
> this one is from http://schmidling.com/making.htm
> 
> ...


Just tried this recipe. Very nice.


----------



## Mountain Mick (Sep 10, 2005)

Yes you can but you need to add some cream


pfaubush said:


> This may sound like a dumb question, but can the whey from this be used to make ricotta?


----------

