Features of the Idiasabal variety and its production. Chemical composition and energy value, benefits and harms when consumed. Cooking recipes and interesting things about cheese.
Idiasabal is a hard pressed cheese made from raw or pasteurized sheep milk in the Basque Country and Navarre. Available in two types - before and after smoking. The smell is sharp, sour, spicy; taste - oily, spicy, nutty; texture - dense, elastic, well cut, with randomly located eyes of various shapes; color - white, creamy, yellowish, ivory, uneven color on the cut; the crust is hard, light brown in non-smoked and dark brown with a cherry tint after additional heat treatment during smoking. Cylinder-shaped heads: diameter - 10-30 cm, height - 8-12 cm, weight - 1-3 kg.
How is Idiasabal cheese made?
Only local Basque sheep milk, obtained after grazing on pastures, is used as a raw material. To improve the taste of the final product, animals are periodically fed with almonds.
It is interesting that Idiasabal cheese is not made, like other varieties, by pouring in pure rennet. One of the secrets of cooking: renin or chymosin is mixed with salt before being added to milk.
Farmers do not forget about vegans: in this case, an enzyme from the pistils of wild thistle is used for curdling.
From 7 liters of milk, 1 kg of the final product is obtained. When pasteurization is required, a low-temperature method is used.
How Idiasabal cheese is made
- The milk yield of several animals is collected in a tank and cooled to 6 ° C.
- Then the feedstock is placed in a water bath at 29 ° C. Mesophilic bacteria and pre-prepared lamb stomach abomasum are added. One of the secrets of even distribution in milk: impregnation of thin cotton fabric of rare weaving and laying it on the surface. This is the method of introduction recommended by old recipes. As soon as the first curd flakes appear, pour in some cold water. The milk is constantly stirred - this speeds up the separation into fractions.
- After the kale is formed, it is cut into cubes the size of a corn grain. Slowly increase the temperature of the contents of the boiler, raising it by 1 ° С for 10 minutes, up to 35 ° С, without ceasing stirring. The stirrer speed increases until the curd grains are the size of the rice grains.
- When they settle, pour out a part of the whey, add salt and repeat the stirring, but not for long, only until the crystals are completely dissolved.
- Pressing is carried out, spreading the curd mass into special large forms.
- When making Idiasabal cheese, pressing is done 2 times. First, large blocks are formed, and then they are cut into pieces, laid out in shapes and the oppression is re-installed. This will help to separate the whey more thoroughly.
- On the surface of each head, a stamp with a brand and date of manufacture is put.
- Salting lasts 12 hours / 1 kg, the heads are immersed in 20% brine.
- The cheeses are dried at room temperature in a sterile chamber, determining the readiness "by eye". As soon as the liquid stops separating, the holding conditions are changed. Now the temperature of the chamber is 10-12 ° C, and the humidity is 85%. At this time, the formation of a crust is monitored - when mold appears, it is wiped with brine.
Duration of exposure is from 2 to 10 months. Some of the ripened heads are smoked using cherry and beech branches. After this process, the taste becomes especially piquant, and the brown crust acquires a cherry hue. Seasonal production - from March to June.
