You will need...
- Equipment: thermometer, cheesecloth, colander, saucepan
- Ingredients: 2L cow’s milk (or 1.5L cow’s milk and 0.5L goats milk), 250ml natural yoghurt, 1tsp cheese salt, regular salt for brine, ¼ liquid rennet, (optional: ¼ tsp vinegar)
Making Feta Cheese...
- Dissolve ¼ liquid rennet in 60ml cold water (you will only use half of this)
- Heat the milk to 350C then remove from heat
- Add the yoghurt and str. Leave for 2 hours
- Reheat to 320C then remove from heat
- Add half the rennet solution and stir gently
- Wait: allow to stand undisturbed for 45 minutes
- Cut the curds into 1cm cubes
- Wait: allow to stand for 20 minutes
- Ladle the curds into a cheesecloth-lined colander and allow to drain for 5 minutes. Then transfer curds and cloth to the cheese mould
- Leave overnight in fridge to drain
- Remove from the mould and cut the cheese into 4 pieces
- Sprinkle salt on all sides of each piece
- Leave at room temperature for 24 hours. Every few hours turn the pieces of feta and sprinkle more salt on any areas where the moisture has removed previous salt.
- Afer 24 hours at room temperature, place the cheese uncov[1]ered, on a plate in your fridge and leave for 3 days.
- Afer three days cut the feta into 1.5cm cubes and eat. Or al[1]ternately it can be preserved by placing in a jar and covering with brine (the brine can be made using anything between 2 and 6 tsp of salt per liter of water)
- Mature: the feta will continue to improve for a few days. It can sofen in the brine depending upon the strength of the curds that you created, this won’t affect the favor but you’ll need to be care[1]ful when you life it out of the brine.
Extra Information...
Traditionally feta is made with ewes milk and has a very unique fa[1]vour. Our recipe gets very close to replicating the favor but there is a way to get even closer. The distinct favor of traditional feta is due to high levels of fatly acids and acetic acid in the cheese. You can try and replicate this by sprinkling some vinegar over the cheese after the final draining, sometimes this method will give your cheese a more distinctly “feta” favor, sometimes it just makes it taste like vinegar-cheese
