Metton cheese preparation method, composition and nutritional value. Benefits and harms when consumed as they are eaten, the history of invention.
Metton is a French pressed cheese that is not eaten on its own. Made from skimmed cow's milk or, less commonly, whey. Shape - crumbly, uneven grains of various sizes, like peanuts or hazelnuts; color - yellow, ocher or beige; aroma - sour milk with a spicy undertone. If you bite through the dense grains, you can feel the sour-spicy aftertaste. Used as an ingredient in the preparation of Cancujot processed cheese.
How Metton cheese is made
The manufacture of a semi-finished product begins with degreasing the feedstock. Cow's milk is poured into vats and cooled to 8 ° C, then it is cleaned from pathogenic microorganisms and mechanical impurities using a separator.
That is, from the first stage, Metton cheese is made as an intermediate for the preparation of other products - for example, cream. They are then used as an ingredient in desserts or eaten as an independent product. Usually, separation and pasteurization are carried out simultaneously, the vats are heated to 33-45 ° C. A water bath is used to increase the temperature. This method allows you to maintain a constant temperature for longer.
Then skim milk is curdled by adding mesophilic bacteria, rennet and calcium chloride as a preservative. After the formation of kale, cutting is carried out, they wait until the curd mass settles to the bottom, heated to 60-80 ° C, mixed and manually laid out in forms, setting oppression. Until this stage, it seems that Metton cheese is prepared like Ricotta, but the subsequent processes differ from all known methods of making cheeses.
The type of forms does not matter. The cheese mass is carefully pressed, left for a day, salting and drying is carried out for 48-72 hours at a low temperature (6-8 ° C). When the whey stops draining and the texture becomes brittle, the heads are crushed again. For this, special presses are used. The size of each piece should be no larger than a hazelnut. The slices are laid out on pallets with small holes for moisture to drain off, lowered into a chamber with a special microclimate: temperature - 22-25 ° С, humidity - 56-75%. The accumulating condensate is carefully removed.
Under these conditions, fermentation of cheese pieces begins, and sometimes (according to reviews of tourists who watched this process) and rotting. Then the future Metton is dried and cooled. This is necessary to stop fermentation. In the finished form, each grain is a piece of cheese without a crust. Mold formation on the surface is not allowed.
There is another method for preparing Metton cheese. Whey left over from other varieties is used as a feedstock. In this case, to stimulate curdling and the formation of denser calcium, the intermediate product is heated to 60-65 ° C. All other processes are the same as when using skim milk as a raw material.
If skim milk was used to prepare Metton, the product will have a yellow-orange color, whey - yellowish or creamy.
