Polish white cheese - twarog / twarozek...

I just love twarozek! But unfortunately you can't buy it here in Ireland so my Hubby decided to make one. It's not so complicated as one may think. I remember when my Granny used to make it from fresh cow's milk. I was a little sceptical if this will work with the pasteurised milk but it did! And what a result!


"Quark is a type of fresh cheese, also known as tvorog (from the Russian творог), topfen (from the Austrian name), biezpiens (from Latvian), and varškė (from Lithuanian). It is made by warming soured milk until the desired degree of denaturation of milk proteins is met, and then strained. Dictionaries usually translate it as curd cheese or cottage cheese, although most commercial varieties of cottage cheese are made with rennet, whereas traditional quark is not. It is soft, white and unaged, similar to some types of fromage frais. It is distinct from ricotta because ricotta (Italian: recooked) is made from scalded whey. Quark usually has much lower fat content (about the same as yoghurt) than cream cheeses and has no salt added." - by Wikipedia.org


How to make it...
Ingredients:
- 6 l of full fat milk (can't be skimmed as you won't get a lot of cheese)
- 0,5 l of buttermilk
From that amount you'll get about 1,3 kg ready to be eaten twarog.
Equipment:
- BIG pot
- muslin cloth
- sieve

It's ideal to start making your cheese in the evening. Pour all the milk into a big pot and add the buttermilk, cover with a lid. Leave it on the stove or somewhere in the kitchen over night. Just let it be and let all the bacterias work.
Next day morning put it on the hob and start warming up, but very little and very slowly. You can't boil it, Hubby brings the temp up to 45C max 50C and keeps it that way for about 15 minutes. By that time you'll see how cheese is starting to form. Stir from time to time to spread the heat evenly.


Place your muslin cloth on the sieve and start pouring your milk/buttermilk mixture through it. You have to be patient with it - my Hubby complicates things here even more by first pouring it through a fine metal sieve and then putting whats left in the sieve onto a muslin cloth - you may call it double sieving ;) Once you've poured everything leave it to drain - if you want very firm, drier cheese you can squeeze your cheese a little bit - we just leave it like that for a good hour or two.
your cheese will keep well in the fridge for up to a week.