Cheese vats - we cook Armenian delicacy at home

Cheese vats is a special kind of salted pickle cheese. He has been preparing in the North Caucasus for more than one century and enjoys universal respect and love in those parts. It is served to the table, cut into large bars, baked in a dough, added to salads and sauces. The technology of its production on an industrial scale differs little from the original - home. Well, since people originally designed this kind of cheese at home, there is nothing extraordinarily complex in this. Let's try and make this tasty and useful Armenian cheese ourselves.

Fluke

Often it happens that a misunderstanding or someone's straggia becomes the reason for the appearance of something fundamentally new. So it turned out with cheese. Legend has it that in the old days, some careless masters overdid milk in a special storage tank, it curdled, fermented, and turned out to be an unusual product. And it tasted so wonderful that people decided to cook it this way in the future. So the history of production of many different varieties, including such as vats, began.

Product Features

Cheese ripens in brine. Perhaps, this determines not only its taste, but also its properties. Cheese vats are salty and aromatic, and all thanks to the composition of the liquid, in which the process of its preparation is completed.

Its structure is soft, brittle, prone to crumbling, the flesh is permeated with a multitude of bubbles. And even after prolonged drying, this cheese remains moist and juicy to the touch. The form is also unusual: traditionally cheese is made in the form of truncated cones. By color, it often turns white or with a dull yellowish tinge.

Caloric value

The nutritional value of the product depends on various factors. First of all, of course, it is the fat content of milk. Brine composition is also important. On the average, 100 grams of cheese contain about 280 calories.

Preparation

Every Caucasian family knows how to make cheese vats. In general, these recipes are similar, but each has its own characteristics. First of all, this concerns the composition of the brine. It adds honey, molasses, malt, syrups, home-made wine, a wide variety of spices.

The main product is milk. Before cooking the cheese, you need to measure its acidity. If it does not reach 20-21 ° T, you will have to resort to the help of ferments - rennet or pepsin. From the rennet , a solution of 1% is prepared, shortly before use. If you are using pepsin, make a 2% solution 2 hours before you plan to start work.

Before starting to curdle the milk, heat it to 32-35 ° C, reduce the heat and keep it for about half an hour. Then we enter the starter and start to mix our future cheese vats. It is convenient to use a wooden spatula.

The weight gradually curts and thickens. Cheese grains are formed. The whey is separated from the cheese portion. This means that the process is the way it should be. Continue to knead another 15 minutes, and then remove from the fire.

Now the cheese should be allowed to cool. After the brew reaches room temperature, we throw it back on a screened cloth with a linen cloth and let the liquid drain. By the way, do not pour it, it is suitable for use in the preparation of pancakes, pies, pastry dough. After the dehydration occurs, the cheese tanks are again heated to a temperature of 37 ° C. It is formed into a whole mass. Now you need to let it fade and dry out. At the same time, self-pressing occurs. By the way, for the formation of a cheese head of this sort, the press is not used, the cheese of the vats becomes cold under its own weight. The main thing - during the drying process do not forget to turn it over.

Salting in brine

It is believed that the cheese will be ready in 2 months. All this time he must be in a liquid. You can use ordinary salted boiled water, but those who decided to learn how to make a cheese in a real Armenian way should not ignore the fragrant Caucasian spices. The amount of salt in the first two weeks should be 15%. Later, the salt should be gradually added, as its content in the liquid decreases. During salting, the temperature should be maintained at 10-15 degrees.

Cones

Preparation of cheese vats in the Caucasus always occurs immediately in large quantities. The cheese is pressed in fabric bags. This is the reason for its shape. At home, it is not difficult to do this, only a suitable bag is needed. In the first hours the cheese mass will take the form of an oval head, and later, when it is turned over, a cone shape is attached to it.

The cheese is stored in the refrigerator in slightly salted brine. Do not keep this product for too long, because it does not include chemical preservatives, and overexposed cheese vats does not have those wonderful properties and tastes like fresh.

Serve cheese with homemade bread, fresh vegetables, greens.