le fromage

guess what? i hit another milestone in my culinary adventure!!! i manage to make cheese. horayyyyyyy. Ughh I'm so happy that I'm awed with myself.

okay so i made mapo tofu, seafood chowder, and been drinking gallons of milk and i don't have anything in mind on what to cook so why not i give it a go with my cheese project even though i don't have enough equipment as of yet. let's see what i lack is a cheese cloth, and cooking thermometer. they're handy if available but doesn't mean that i cant make it without them so JUST DO IT!!!!

firstly i buy moomoo more than the usual amount. usual amount for drinking and a part for cheese making project. since it is my first try i only use 1 bag of milk around 700 ml. heat up the milk and i added the lime juice using the lime from my backyard. don't remember whether i should add the lime juice before or after boiling so i just add it before boiling. fyi, any acidic thing can be used e.g lemon juice, vinegar, and there is also rennet, an enzyme from cow's stomach that can be used to make cheese without making the milk acidic but since rennet usage is not halal i cant use rennet. there's supposed to be a plant based rennet but just couldn't bother to get my hand on it as I'm pretty sure it is very hard to get it in a small place like mine.

so acid added, and heated it and i left it to cool down to see if the milk curdle after that but after 30 minutes to my disappointment, it stayed as milk. pssshhh i tried to heat it one more time and after 30 minutes of cooling down it was still the same. so i added a bit of vinegar during my third attempt to heat it up but it still remain the same. i was going to give up and just drink up the soured milk (lol) when i ask google what went wrong during the whole process and voila.... i didn't heat the milk enough. it didn't get to boiling level to curdle up. people said that you need to boil it as in have the dome thingy formed during the milk boiling... you know the blub blub thing foaming when it is boiled. so max the heat on the stove i did and within seconds the milk curdle up as it was boiling leaving clearer fluid bubbling. i was so overjoyed seeing that happening.

then i poured the milk through a cloth filter separating the curd from the fluid. I'm supposed to use cheese cloth but since i don't have any, the penapis teh worked fine and besides, the amount of cheese I was making is small anyway. so when cheese curdle it leaves behind fluid called whey. this byproduct of cheese making  contains all the protein in the milk where as cheese contains all the fat.
so don't throw it away down the drain. it will be a big waste. oh yeah after separating the curd from the fluid, i have the cheese!!!! this cheese is called paneer. its common ingredient in Indian cooking and also the mist basic form of cheese. i think westerners call it cottage cheese but I'm not really sure.

heating up the milk!!! blub blub blub

right when the milk boil it curdle straight away as i already added the acids earlier.

a sight of success.

and here's the paneer after separating it from the whey.

overall, success!!!! yeay. i tried to make the paneer into mozzarella by microwaving it but it didn't get to be mozzarella. maybe it was because i use too much acid. oh well, ill settle with paneer for now hueheuheuhue. the taste have slight lime-y taste and smell because i didn't bother to rinse the cheese with cold water after separating it from the whey. still good anyway. i just have to compress the cheese to make it into a block of paneer but think its fine like this. now my future aim for cheese making skill is to make it into high level where i can make certain cheese like mozzarella, cheddar, or parmesan. i know it is a very long way for me to be able to make parmesan on my own because of the steps needed to make it and the amount of time it takes to produce it.

also i need to figure out what to do with the whey every time i make cheese. maybe ill just gulp it down like protein shake. after all it is the same thing that those gym rats have been consuming.