Description of Kashkaval cheese and cooking algorithm, energy value and composition. Useful properties, possible harm when consumed, use in cooking. The history of the variety.
Kashkaval is a cheese from the pasta-filato group, with heads in the shape of a bag, pear or wineskin, tied with a rope near the thin end, due to which a small ball forms on this side. Smell - cheesy, earthy; yellow color; texture - viscous, elastic, "springy", stretching when heated; eyes - large, unevenly spaced, and few of them; taste - from sweet and spicy to salty and spicy. The crust is natural, smooth, light yellow or ocher. The longer the aging, the richer the color and the more pronounced the taste of the Kashkaval cheese. One of the options for making the product is smoking. The variety can be called "international": it is popular in Bulgaria, Italy, Serbia, Albania, throughout the Middle East and in Russia, in the Caucasus.
How is Kashkaval cheese made?
A century ago, a mixture of mare's and cow's milk was used as a raw material for Kashkaval cheese, but now they have given up milk of horses. But this does not mean that we limited ourselves to one type of feedstock. If the product is made from cow's milk, in Bulgaria the term “Vitosh” is added to the name, the term “Balkans” for sheep's milk, and “Preslav” is a mixture of 2 types.
Complex starter culture - selected mesophilic cultures and lipase; for curdling, rennet and whey left over from the preparation of the previous batch (or yogurt) are used. Calcium chloride and salt are used as preservatives.
How Kashkaval cheese is made
- After pasteurization, the feedstock is cooled to 34-36 ° C, the sourdough is poured onto the surface and left to rehydrate. Then pour in whey or yogurt, shake and leave to "rest".
- Calcium chloride, diluted with a small amount of warm water, and liquid rennet are poured in, mixed and left to form calcium. It takes 40-50 minutes to ripen.
- Check for a clean break: a dense clot is lifted with a knife blade and cut. If the cut is straight and immediately filled with whey, you can start grinding.
- The size of the cheese grains is the size of a bean. During kneading, the container with the intermediate raw materials is slowly heated to 46-48 ° C at a rate of 1 ° C. This is necessary to increase the acidity.
- The whey is gradually poured into a vat, and the curd pieces are put into a linen bag and also lowered into it. Leave for a long time - 4-8 hours, periodically checking the acidity and making a melting test. To do this, the pieces are immersed in water heated to 80 ° C, and after a few seconds they are taken out and try to pull out.
- As soon as the melting test is positive, the curd mass is cut into thin slices or pulled into ribbons by hand, and then placed in a vat with a liquid heated to 85 ° C (a mixture of whey and pure water), they begin to knead. To do this, use a wooden stirrer, reminiscent of a paddle for beating butter. Metal blades can be used, but cheese makers believe that this negatively affects the taste of the final product.
- Next, Kashkaval cheese is made, like other types of pasta-filato, forming heads by hand, compacting the dough - ideally, there should be no voids. On the one hand, stepping back 5 cm from the top, they pull it with a rope (rope), with a diameter of at least 5 cm. The knots are quite dense: for ripening, the cheese is suspended, and a break cannot be allowed.
- The heads are soaked in ice water and then submerged in 20% brine. Salting time depends on the mass of the head. For example, with a weight of 1 kg, 6 hours are needed, turn over after 3 hours; and at 3 kg - already 8 hours, with the same frequency of position change.
- To dry, "pears" are hung on the crossbar for 3-4 hours. Transfer to premises with special conditions is not required. When the surface feels dry to the touch, the cheese is transferred to a ripening chamber.
- Duration of exposure - 30-100 days, required temperature - 10-13 ° C, humidity -70-75%.
Mold growth is possible during crust formation. You need to get rid of it at the first points on the surface. To do this, Kashkaval cheese is washed first with running water, and then treated with brine with a small amount of vinegar. They are dried again and only then returned to the chamber. There is no need to turn over anything - the heads are tied in pairs and hung on a beam, there is no contact with the surface of the shelves. Smoking is carried out not earlier than after 30 days, after which the product is again placed in the chamber. The longer the aging, the sharper the taste.
