SC - Re: sca-cooks V1 #442

[L Herr-Gelatt and J R Gelatt]

Kathryn wrote:
>I have a recipe that call's for farmer's cheese. I have searched all the
grocery chains around here for it.  But to no avail.  
>
>What is it?  
>What is a reasonable substitute?  
>Can I use riccota? 
>Or dry-curd cottage cheese?  
>Or is it more closely related to something else?  
>Or, is there a mixture I can make from two other cheeses that will end up
resembling farmer's cheese?
>
>
>Thank you in advance for all your help.
>
>Kateryn de Develyn
>debh at microware.com
>

Farmer's cheese is a rather plain, whole-milk cheese that is made "green" .
Anticipating the questions, green cheese is not actually the color green. It
is merely "unripened" or fresh. For farmer's cheese, rennet is used to make
a large curd. The curds are pressed with salt sprunkled amongst them in the
vate (cheese press). A Follower (press) and Weights are added to extract the
extra whey. It sits like this for many hours and drips whey. When it is
reasonably dry, you have plain green cheese or farmer's cheese.  Modern
store-bought cottage cheese is the closest you will get if you cannot find
farmer's cheese (we can get it easily in N.E. Penna). However, be advised
that cottage cheese is the above mentioned curds, cut smaller, with cream
added back to them after draining from the whey and a short pressing---that
cream is the "sauce" the curds are in. So you will either press the cottage
cheese to remove the liquid, or you could reduce the overall liquid in your
mixture.

Curd cheese would be something like cottage cheese without the added liquid,
or farmer's cheese without the pressing.

Hope this helps. Please share your recipe. I have an itch to make
cheese....now I need something to use it in.

Aoife

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