Soft and fast
Soft cheese Soft cheeses ripen not for long - fromone day to a couple of weeks. The consistency is approximately the same - from classically soft (feta) or elastic (suluguni) to elastic-fibrous (mozzarella) and slightly crumbly (Adygei). The technological cycle is as follows: milk (sheep, goat, cow, buffalo or milk mix) is mixed with sourdough, it ferments, rolls up, the cheese mass is separated from the whey. Then comes the turn of pickle: for most fresh cheeses, pickle is the only way to survive. The youngest mozzarella is stored in brine for only one day and is called giornata, “ephemeral”. For this reason, it is not exported, and you can taste “one-day” only in Italy. Mascarpone and Philadelphia twin cheeses dispense with brine, which are put in cheesecakes and tiramisu. Cheese related relations extend from France to the Caucasus: cousins and second cousins live thousands of kilometers from each other. However, the general blood is felt: pita with fresh herbs, tomatoes and suluguni in the lost mountain village of Georgia resembles a flat cake with feta and the same herbs with tomatoes in a Greek tavern, especially when combined with young, bold and tannic red wine. Italy The first mention of soft cheeses It is also found in Pliny the Elder. The main character of the family of fresh cheeses on the peninsula-boot is mozzarella.
The homeland of mozzarella is considered the province of Lazio andCampaign: in the 10th century, this territory was swamped, so the peasants began to breed hardy and unpretentious buffaloes, and make cheese from milk of buffaloes. To this day, the true Campanian mozzarella is mozzarella di bufala. Although there is the usual cow mozzarella - fior di latte, and it is produced en masse. In their love for mozzarella, the Italians came to the point that they opened a mozzarella bar a couple of years ago in Rome, thus creating a new catering format, akin to our dumplings or pancakes . The bar offers a variety of mozzarella, good in Italy, their number reaches hundreds. One of the most prestigious mozzarella varieties - Burata cheese, more tender and oily. Ricotta is also fresh. Soft cheese, similar to our cottage cheese. Italians call Ricotta "the stepdaughter of milk" because they do it not directly from milk, but from milk whey, which is boiled several times. Ricotta is translated from Italian as “boiled over”. It is useful due to its low fat content. Ricotta is made from sheep, cow and buffalo milk. It is not only fresh (ricotta forte), but also seasoned, and even smoked. Caucasus Soft homemade cheese in the Caucasus is an ancient and revered genre. Own variations on its theme exist not only in every former Soviet republic of Transcaucasia, but also in every region, city, and even an aul. All-Russian fame gained generalized pop variants: Suluguni and Adygei cheese.
Homeland Suluguni - Georgia. This is a young cheese without a crust, ripening in a solution of table salt. Suluguni can be of different degrees of maturity, but ripening in a brine is the main condition for its creation. Adygei cheese is not kept in brine for a long time, therefore it is deprived of suluguni’s strong salinity, and tender and fresh-bodied than it resembles mozzarella. It is made like this: the milk heated to 100 ° C is mixed with acidic whey and filtered through gauze. By the same principle, an infinite number of similar Caucasian cheeses is produced, each of which has its own local name. Many believe that, in fact, these cheeses, like the Greek feta, are close to the Bulgarian brynze. However, cheese is pressed cheese. Caucasian soft cheeses are good in salads and appetizers, in fillings of pies and in a fried form. But at full power, their taste is revealed in combination with the products of the countrymen: with lavash cooked in a stone eastern oven, with tomatoes grown under the southern sun, greens and garlic.
