Home-made haloumi cheese

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The finished product. Photos by Linda Robertson.
The finished product. Photos by Linda Robertson.

Daniel Pfyl, hospitality management lecturer at Otago Polytechnic, shares some professional techniques to make your cooking easier. This month he shows us how to make haloumi cheese at home.

Haloumi is lovely fresh and can be sliced and browned on a grill or barbecue. It's nice tossed with roasted vegetables, instead of mozzarella on pizza, diced in salads or frittatas instead of feta.

 

Home-made haloumi cheese

Ingredients

2L farmhouse (non-homogenized) milk (or 1.8 litres blue top homogenized milk and 200ml cream)
5ml (1 tsp) rennet
1 tsp salt or to taste

Brine

½ cup leftover whey from making the cheese
½ cup water
1 Tbsp salt or to taste
½ Tbsp dried herbs or ¼ Tbsp spices (optional)

 

Method

1) Farmhouse (non-homogenized) milk which has the cream floating on top gives the best yield, but blue top with additional cream will do. If you have access to unpasteurised milk from a cow, you can use that but Chef Pfyl recommends pasteurizing it by heating it to 65degC for 30 minutes before making the cheese.

2) First you need to bring the milk up to 35degC, which is best done over hot water. It's easiest to use a stainless steel or other heatproof bowl over a pot of hot water on low heat.

3) Use a thermometer and when the milk is up to temperature remove it from the heat, recheck the temperature and stir in the rennet. If the milk gets too hot, just allow it to cool until it is 35degC. You can get rennet from the supermarkets and it is also used for making junket.

4) Stir the rennet into the warm milk for 30 seconds, then cover the bowl with a clean cloth (not plastic) and put aside for three or more hours in a warm place. Room temperature about 18degC-25degC is ideal.

5) After three hours the milk should be set and jelly-like. With a knife, cut the curds into squares of about 2.5cm, cutting down to the bottom of the bowl.

6) Tip into a microwaveable bowl and heat on high for two minutes. Stir and heat for another two minutes.

7) The curds will separate from the whey. Check the texture of the curd. It should be slightly bouncy. If they are too soft, microwave for another minute. If you don't have a microwave, you can heat the curds over hot water.

Add salt and stir. If you are using flavourings, now is the time to add them.

8) Line a colander with a piece of clean muslin cloth. Tip the curds and whey into the cloth-lined colander and allow to drain.

9) Pick up the corners of the cloth and squeeze out more whey until the cheese is firm.

10) Put the cheese, still in its cloth, in a mould. Chef Pfyl uses a small square dish. Press the cheese out to shape and flatten the top, fold the excess cheesecloth over the top and put in the fridge to cool completely.

11) Meanwhile prepare the brine with half a cup of whey, a half cup of water and a tablespoon of salt. Chef Pfyl has experimented with using less salt but says it does not work as well as the salt is needed to draw the moisture out of the cheese.

12) When the cheese is cold, put it in a container with the brine and store 2-3 days in the fridge before using.

Yield: about 400g cheese.

 


If you would like to request a particular technique we haven't already shown, please let us know. Write to Cooking 101, Editorial Features, Otago Daily Times, PO Box 181, Dunedin or email odt.features@odt.co.nz with cooking 101 in the subject line. To check earlier Cooking 101 columns visit www.odt.co.nz and search for ''cooking 101''.

More information on cooking from Otago Polytechnic can be found at www.otagocookeryl4.blogspot.com


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