Description of Tulum cheese, manufacturing features, composition and energy value. Benefits and harms of consumption, culinary uses and history of the variety.
Tulum is a traditional Turkish cheese made from goat's milk. The name literally translates as "wineskin", and it is in this leather bag that the fermented milk product matures. Consistency - soft; texture - like dense cottage cheese, crumbly; color - milky white, dark blotches are possible with the addition of flavor enhancers. The smell can be characterized as unpleasant - "sour" milk, "goaty", but the taste is spicy, sharp, salty, piquant, but at the same time "rustic", fatty curd. The crust is not formed, the surface is unevenly colored, white-gray, with uneven dark spots. Farmer's cheese heads are not shaped in a specific way; dairy-made versions are ellipsoids or pyramids with rounded edges.
How is Tulum cheese made?
The starting material for the homemade product is goat milk, sometimes it is mixed with sheep or buffalo milk. Under production conditions, milk is defatted - diluted with boiled water, and then homogenized. The addition of cow milk is allowed.
To ripen Tulum cheese, you need a leather wineskin bag. The goat skin is prepared in advance. Hair is removed, degreased and salted. Such bags are sewn from processed leather.
How Tulum cheese is made at home or on farms:
- Milk is heated, without pasteurizing, to 30 ° C, and then lactic acid gas-forming sourdough is poured onto the surface. It is allowed to acidify milk with whey of the previous batch or collect and place it in a warm place in order to obtain the desired acidity in a natural way.
- The rennet-coagulant is poured in. It takes 1-2 hours to form the kale.
- Cut the curd grains - the size of no more than beans, knead for 20-30 minutes, maintaining a constant temperature. After the cheese grains have sunk to the bottom, drain 1/3 of the whey. The manipulations are repeated several times until the liquid remains as much as necessary to cover the surface.
- The curd mass is thrown into a colander, covered with wet gauze, folded in several layers. Wring out and hung in a cool room - 16-18 ° C, for 8 hours.
- Placed on a drainage table and squeeze (squeeze) with a wooden circle. Leave for 5-6 hours, additionally setting oppression.
- Break the cheese monolith into pieces of 8x5 cm and salted for 8-12 hours in 20% brine. Until the twentieth century, some cheese makers used sea water to prepare Tulum cheese as a long-term storage product, pre-evaporating it to the required concentration.
- After salting, the intermediate product is spread on a drainage table and dried for 1 day, turning over every 4 hours.
- Pieces of cottage cheese are crushed, poured into a container and poured with goat's milk. Then it is squeezed by hand and transferred to a goat skin bag. the surface is covered with salt, and the wineskin is tightened with a fixed cord.
- Fermentation takes place in a cellar or cave at a temperature of 10-12 ° C. To separate the whey during aging, the bag is perforated.
The cheese is kept for 3 to 6 months. If mold appears on the surface, then it is removed along with part of the curd.
In the production of Tulum cheese in dairy factories, the intermediate product is wrapped in bags of pre-processed and disinfected cow skins for ripening and placed in refrigerated chambers at a temperature of 2-4 ° C and a humidity of 60-65%. Sanitary and hygienic conditions are observed, but the shelf life is reduced from 2-3 weeks to 7 days.
Some manufacturers, in order to reduce the infectious danger, for ripening Tulum cheese is placed in plastic barrels with a small amount of salt or in baths with cold brine, and then dried in a chamber. In this case, only the name remains of the original product, and the taste becomes softer, similar to Feta cheese. Until now, it has not been possible to understand why the farm product is less susceptible to spoilage.
Composition and calorie content of Tulum cheese
The fat content of the original product depends on the quality and type of raw materials, the lactation period of the animals, the season and the duration of ripening. When manufactured in summer, this parameter is reduced to 30-35%, and in winter it can reach 45%.
The calorie content of Tulum cheese is 257 kcal per 100 g, of which:
- Protein - 26 g;
- Fat - 14.7 g;
- Carbohydrates - 3.3 g.
Of the vitamins, most of all is retinol: 100 g of a piece contains 7% of the amount required by the body during the day. The presence of tocopherol, pyridoxine, choline, niacin, pantothenic and folic acid, and calciferol can be noted.
The mineral composition is dominated by calcium (75% of the daily value in 100 g), sodium (53%), iron (4%), potassium, magnesium, manganese, copper and selenium.
Fats in Tulum cheese:
- Saturated fatty acids - 9.45 g;
- Polyunsaturated fatty acids - 0.358 g;
- Monounsaturated fatty acids - 0.133 g;
- Cholesterol - 45 mg per 100 g.
Among saturated fatty acids, oleic, palmitic and myristic acids prevail.
Due to the peculiarities of fermentation, the composition of the cheese mass is significantly influenced by the ripening conditions and the quality of the processing of the skins, which are used for sewing the wineskin where Tulum matures. Since sterilization is not carried out, bacteria and fungi that are not characteristic of this type of fermented milk product may remain. These microorganisms break down fatty acids and disrupt their ratio, so each batch has to be evaluated when studying the chemical composition of farm options.
The benefits of Tulum cheese
The sharp salty taste of the fermented milk product excites sensitive receptors in the mouth and increases the production of saliva. Due to the increase in acidity, the activity of pathogenic microorganisms that invade from outside and colonize the mucous membrane of the oropharynx, including the tonsils, and gum pockets is suppressed. Reduces the likelihood of caries and stomatitis, exacerbations of chronic diseases - tonsillitis or pharyngitis.
Benefits of Tulum Cheese:
- Strengthens teeth and bones, reduces the incidence of osteoporosis.
- Increases the level of hemoglobin, prevents the development of anemia.
- Normalizes the work of the cardiovascular system, heart rate, facilitates the delivery of oxygen to small capillaries.
- Accelerates the regeneration of epithelial tissues, shortens the rehabilitation period after operations.
- Stimulates the dissolution of cholesterol, which has already been deposited on the walls of blood vessels.
- It normalizes the functioning of the nervous system, accelerates the transmission of nerve impulses from the peripheral system to the brain and vice versa, thereby improving coordination.
- Increases the speed of peristalsis, but the beneficial flora is not washed out. Favorable conditions are created to increase the activity of the beneficial intestinal flora.
- It has anti-inflammatory and immunostimulating effects.
Tulum cheese made from goat's milk is easier to digest, easier to tolerate by allergy sufferers. It helps young women to cope with menstrual cramps, mature - with the transition to menopause, and men - to maintain a healthy reproductive system. The relatively low fat content makes it possible to introduce it into the diet for obesity.
