Squeaky cheese
snowgrouse wrote about leipäjuusto the other day, and I got curious, and discovered that there is a northern Swedish equivalent called kaffeost ("coffee cheese"), since the northerners usually cut it into cubes and put in their coffee. :) Also it seemed like it would work really well for a low-carb diet. Now, leipäjuusto (unlike kaffeost) is a colostrum cheese, which is a bit hard to get if you don't know any dairy farmers, but I recalled an old recipe I have for a Swedish colostrum pudding (kalvdans) "for the cattle-less", that added dried milk powder (and cream) for a similar effect. So even though kaffeost is usually made with ordinary milk, I opted for the fake colostrum variety, reasoning that it would improve the nutritional content.
The other detail is that kaffeost/leipäjuusto is a rennet cheese, so nothing for strict veggies. I spent days trying to find online where I could buy rennet, and finally just went into a chemist and asked on the off-chance that they had it, which they did. So I bought a bottle, and on the way home I also bought two litres of organic extra full-fat unhomogenised ("gammaldags") milk and a 0.3 litre carton of organic fresh cream, and two sachets of dried skimmed milk powder. How hard could it be? I thought.
Well, it wasn't hard, and it was. The process was pretty straightforward, and it wasn't hard to make the milk curdle, but it was pretty hard work to get rid of all the whey. Now I know exactly what is meant in medieval recipes when they tell you to "take a cruddes and wryng out þe wheyze." ^^ (If you have a large fridge, you can just wrap the curds in cheesecloth, put it in a strainer/colander over a bowl, and a heavy weight on top, and leave it to drain on its own overnight. But I don't have a large fridge, so I had to do it by handpower.)
snowgrouse tells me that it should be baked over an open fire and have a kind of scorched surface, but I of course had to make do with an ordinary electric cooker oven. The result was still pretty good. :)
The other detail is that kaffeost/leipäjuusto is a rennet cheese, so nothing for strict veggies. I spent days trying to find online where I could buy rennet, and finally just went into a chemist and asked on the off-chance that they had it, which they did. So I bought a bottle, and on the way home I also bought two litres of organic extra full-fat unhomogenised ("gammaldags") milk and a 0.3 litre carton of organic fresh cream, and two sachets of dried skimmed milk powder. How hard could it be? I thought.
Well, it wasn't hard, and it was. The process was pretty straightforward, and it wasn't hard to make the milk curdle, but it was pretty hard work to get rid of all the whey. Now I know exactly what is meant in medieval recipes when they tell you to "take a cruddes and wryng out þe wheyze." ^^ (If you have a large fridge, you can just wrap the curds in cheesecloth, put it in a strainer/colander over a bowl, and a heavy weight on top, and leave it to drain on its own overnight. But I don't have a large fridge, so I had to do it by handpower.)
snowgrouse tells me that it should be baked over an open fire and have a kind of scorched surface, but I of course had to make do with an ordinary electric cooker oven. The result was still pretty good. :)