Provolone is a delicate Italian cheese. Manufacturing method, nutritional value, chemical composition, benefits and harms. Recipes with this product and interesting facts about it.
Provolone is a reduced-fat Italian cheese made from cow's milk. It is impossible to accurately characterize the taste - it largely depends on the duration of ripening. It can be delicate, sweetish and pronouncedly spicy. The texture is delicate and soft, homogeneous, it can be described as silky, there are few eyes. The product belongs to the category "Pasta Filata", which means "Elongated Drop". That is, there is no classical shape for forming a head, the main thing is that it should be elongated. The crust is golden yellowish.
How is Provolone cheese made?
In terms of technology, the production of this variety resembles the production of Mozzarella. Cow's milk (or a mixture with sheep's milk) is refined. Enrichment is a very important step. A cheese starter is introduced into the feedstock - whey, decanted from the previous batch of the product. Leave for 8 hours. During this time, the amount of enzymes and nutrients increases.
Then add rennet for curdling, calculate the flocculation time, cut the curd.
Further, the preparation of Provolone cheese is carried out according to its own algorithm. The whey is heated to 90 ° C. The cheese curd is boiled until it becomes "rubbery", elastic, stretching. Then the serum is decanted, and the dense mass is washed.
Pressing is not carried out. Instead, the future cheese is placed in containers made of food-grade plastic, and given the desired shape, leaving for 3-5 hours in ice water, otherwise the mass will not harden. Then salting is possible.
At the next stage, according to Provolone's recipe, it is suspended in cellars with high humidity and low temperature (70-85% and 8-12 ° C), tied with a rope. It is because of the ties that traces remain on the heads. Aging duration - from 3 months. During this time, a yellow oily crust appears on the surface.
