I've made acid-set cottage cheese before, in the form of Paneer, but unlike a matured cheese, the fresh curds have a very mild taste. There doesn't seem to be much information out there describing whether acid-set curds can be pressed and aged, so I decided to try it for myself.
I've been idly planning this experiment for ages, but I was galvanised into action by an accidental milk delivery.
(My wife and kids were away with relatives between Christmas and New Year, but we forgot to cancel the milk. The milkman delivered six pints to the doorstep, on top of the one and a half pints (one not shown here) I already had in the fridge.
There's no way I'd consume more than 7 pints in a couple of days, so I set about making cheese...
It's worth noting at this point that, in rather typical Atomic Shrimp style, hardly anything in this experiment is done the right way, using the right equipment or the right supplies.
I think it's only fair to add that the end result was not a success this time. It was a highly interesting failure, but I mention it now so as not to lead anyone down the garden path.
Real cheese needs to be made using a bacterial starter culture - it's this culture that helps it develop flavour and character in the maturing process.
Starter cultures are available in powder form commercially, but I decided to see if I could capture a culture from existing cheese - so I mashed a small piece of mild cheddar into half a glass of milk and left this at room temperature overnight before starting to make the curds.
I won't go into too much detail about the making the curds, as I followed exactly the same method as for the Paneer on the previous page. After rinsing them, I stirred them together with my starter culture, then drained off the excess liquid.
Initial pressing in a cloth bag under a weighted plate yielded a soft ball of paneer, exactly as before.
But I wanted to press the curds really dry, so I put them in a clean piece of cloth, packed down into the receptacle of my potato ricer.
I applied constant pressure to the curds by means of a Spanish Windlass - a piece of cord looped around both handles, into which a stick (here a wooden spoon) is inserted and twisted, greatly tightening the cord.
I wound the press tighter periodically and over the course of a few hours, quite a bit of whey came out, reducing the curds by about one third in volume.
I placed the pressed cheese on a plastic grid, on a plate and covered it with a glass bowl.
This went on the top shelf of the refrigerator, where I left it alone for a week.
I had intended to try to inoculate the outside of the cheese with white mould from a piece of Brie, but changed my mind, as I couldn't think of a good way to apply it uniformly.
The End Result
By the middle of the week, it was looking promising - the curds changed from pure white to pale buttery yellow and started to smell pleasantly cheesy.
However, a few days later - a week from starting - it was clear that all was not well. The cheese was exuding a thickish clear yellow-green liquid and had turned pinkish orange on the outside surfaces.
The smell was quite strong - although not altogether unpleasant - reminiscent of a ripe Camembert.
There is not a chance I would risk eating this - although I tried to observe proper hygiene throughout the experiment, there's just no easy way to determine exactly what microbial nasties I might have been culturing here. I put the thing in my food waste recycling bin (it will go off to a municipal digester to be made into methane and fertiliser).
Keep up the great site, Javier http://LasTresRs.blogspot.com