About the benefits and harms of smoked cheese
Cheese is a valuable protein product, suitable for therapeutic and dietary nutrition.
During maturation, complex proteins are broken down into their components - amino acids. Some of them - lysine, tryptophan, methionine - are especially valuable for humans, since they are not synthesized by the body. This is a ready-made material for building cells and tissues of our body. Proteins are absorbed by 98.5%.
Cheese fat is easily digested by the human gastrointestinal tract. The fat content in cheese is from 19 to 30%.
Vitamins - A, D, E, B12, B2 - help regulate all metabolic processes in the body.
Calcium, zinc, phosphorus support bones, teeth, normalize muscle contraction and nervous system activity, and promote hair growth.
It is a high-calorie product. Energy value is 208-400 Kcal per 100 g. It is advisable to consume no more than 70 g per day.
Those who are allergic to milk protein, suffer from migraines, edema, gastritis, hypertension, and excess weight should limit their consumption of smoked cheese.
For those who are not comfortable with milk protein, a soy product - tofu - is suitable.
How to smoke cheese in a cold smokehouse
Chips from fruit trees - cherry, peach, apple, grape, apricot - are more suitable for smoking cheese. They produce a mild taste and aroma. Hardwoods produce a coarser, smokier flavor.
Smoked cheeses are served not only as an independent snack, but also in dishes prepared with them. Caesar salad with smoked cheese gets a richer taste.
Ingredients:
- hard cheese - 600 g;
- “Provencal herbs” seasoning - 20 g;
- refined vegetable oil - 30 g;
- ground red pepper - 5 g.
Cooking instructions:
- Cut the hard cheese into cubes weighing 150 g.
- Wrap each piece in gauze and tie it crosswise with twine.
- Prepare your smoker for cold smoking. Place fruit chips in the smoke generator.
- Set the temperature between 25 and 30 °C.
- Wait until smoke starts flowing into the smokehouse chamber.
- Place the cheese on the smoker grate. Close the camera with the lid.
- Smoke the cheese for 3-4 hours.
- Turn off the smoker. Cool the cheese and hang it to ripen without removing it from the gauze for 2 days. Choose a place with good ventilation and shade.
- Cut the cheese into cubes and place in a container. Stir in herbes de Provence seasoning, red pepper and vegetable oil.
- Cover the container with a lid and leave in the refrigerator for 2 days.
- Serve as a ready-made cold appetizer.
Advice! Cold smoked cheese is delicious on its own; it can be used without spices, herbs and oil immediately after ripening.
Calorie content per 100 g of product is 380.18 Kcal.
Watch a video on how to cold smoke cheese correctly.
Delicious recipes with Adyghe cheese
- Fried Adyghe cheese. How to fry Adyghe cheese?
Dip the finished cheese into the batter and fry on both sides over low heat in a frying pan. Recipe for making batter: beat 2 chicken eggs with a small amount of milk and 2 tbsp. spoons of flour, salt. - Baked Adyghe cheese. Baked Adyghe cheese
harmonizes perfectly with vegetables. Cut the cheese into slices, place chopped or grated vegetables (carrots, zucchini, potatoes, etc.) on it, add salt, coat with mayonnaise and sprinkle with grated hard cheese. Place the dish in the oven for 15 minutes. - Salad with Adyghe cheese.
The main basis of the salad is diced Adyghe cheese, boiled chicken breast, 2 boiled chicken eggs, and corn are added to it. A mixture of sour cream and mayonnaise is ideal as a dressing. - Salad with Adyghe cheese and tomatoes.
This salad is ideal for healthy food lovers. Add sliced tomatoes, cucumbers and diced sweet peppers to the diced pieces of Adyghe cheese. Olive oil would be better for dressing. - Dumplings with Adyghe cheese.
Knead the dough using water, eggs, vegetable oil, salt and flour. Filling: grated Adyghe cheese, greens. Form small cakes from the prepared dough, fill them with the prepared filling, pinch the edges and boil in boiling water. We determine the readiness of the dish by the floating of the dumplings. Before serving, brush the dumplings with butter and serve with sour cream.
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We smoke cheese in a hot smoker
Cheese processed with smoke in a hot-smoked smokehouse is used in assorted cheeses, salads with smoked sausage and cheese, sandwiches, pizza, and served with fruits and fresh vegetables.
Ingredients:
- hard cheese such as Dutch or Russian - 600 g.
Cooking instructions:
- Cut the cheese into equal rectangular pieces.
- Wrap each piece in three-ply white paper napkins (no pattern).
- Tie the cheese with string or twine.
- Place moistened fruit tree chips in the smoking chamber.
- Light the grill, place the smoking container on the heat source and wait until dense smoke forms.
- Place pieces of cheese on the smoker grate and close the lid. Smoke for 1.5-2 minutes.
- Cool the cheese pieces, unwrap them, and transfer them to a container. Place the dishes in the refrigerator for a day.
Important! The cheese is kept in the cold so that the smoked products penetrate into the inner layers. The product will acquire a bright smoked taste and aroma.
Calorie content per 100 g of product is 363.0 Kcal.
Smoked cheese is used for sandwiches and cold appetizers
Smoking cheese with liquid smoke
An easy way to cook smoked meats is to use liquid smoke. This way you can smoke chechil (pigtail), scamorza and other cheeses.
Ingredients:
- cheese - 1 kg;
- filtered water - 1 l;
- liquid smoke - 100 ml.
Cooking instructions:
- Dilute liquid smoke with cold boiled water.
- Place the cheese in the solution and leave for 2-3 hours to better soak the inner layers.
- Pat dry with paper towels.
- Hang in the air for a period of 1-2 hours to a day.
- To store, place in the refrigerator.
The product is ready for consumption without additional heat treatment.
Advice! The concentration of liquid smoke can be changed to suit your taste.
How to determine whether Adyghe cheese is fresh
If the cheese changes its color from white to cream, it means that its storage conditions were not correctly observed.
Fresh cheese has a moist surface and a color between white and light yellow.
A good cheese should taste like milk, without the taste of chemicals or the smell of other products.
The storage container must be dense - a container or packaging. Do not store cheese for more than 1 month, as it is no longer suitable for consumption.
Cheeses have long held a place of honor
, and the culinary potential of this product cannot be exhausted.
It is widespread everywhere, and from the abundance of assortment on the counter you can be confused - which variety or type to choose?
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Any buyer strives to buy fresh, high-quality and tasty cheese.
To find one, you need to “get acquainted” with the desired product and it is advisable to do this at the selection stage
so as not to make a mistake with the purchase.
When choosing cheese on the counter, first of all, you should pay attention to how fresh it is and how much time it has left to “live”, i.e. on the timing of it.
Smoke cheese in the oven
It doesn’t matter if you don’t have a smokehouse at home. You can successfully use an oven for smoking. This method is used to smoke any cheese - hard, suluguni, Adyghe, Chechil.
Cooking instructions:
- Use the cheese in large pieces or cut into sticks.
- Prepare the oven. Place foil on a baking sheet and spread a thin layer of wet fruit sawdust or wood chips. Place the baking tray on the bottom.
- Turn on the oven at 200-220 °C and wait until the smoke from the wood chips fills the chamber.
- Place the grill with cheese in the chamber, close the door and smoke for 1.5-3 minutes, depending on the size and type of product.
Advice! To enhance the smoking effect, brush the surface of the pieces with liquid smoke.
Adyghe cheese at home - basic technological principles
The difference between the production technology of Adyghe cheese and other brine cheeses is that long-term pasteurization is used for its production.
The only difficulty in making Adyghe cheese at home is to ensure long-term heating of the milk to a temperature of 95ºϹ, which affects the consistency of the curd. At the specified temperature, as well as during continuous stirring, the milk protein sticks together into thread-like clots, pushing out the whey mass.
To prevent milk from running away and burning during pasteurization, there is a simple and effective way to solve the problem: before heating, the raw material must be cooled as much as possible, and then added to the pan for pasteurization gradually, in small parts, with continuous stirring, pouring cooled milk along the edge of the container and at the same time lowering temperature of the pan and raw materials.
To prevent the milk from burning, before you start brewing the cheese dough, pour a little water into the bottom of the pan, and after bringing it to a boil, start adding fresh milk first, and then whey, sour cream or yogurt. Using fermented milk products in making homemade pickled cheeses is the best option. These products are naturally rich in essential bacteria and enzymes, and every housewife knows how to handle them correctly.
Special and rennet enzymes and starter cultures that are used in industrial cheese making require a certain level of preparation from the beginning cheese maker, and, in addition, their use makes sense for impressive volumes of cheese production: special starter cultures in the amount of 1.5-2 g are added to 100 liters of milk . At home, it is unlikely that anyone will need such an amount of cheese: from 100 liters of milk you can get 13-16 kg of product, depending on the type of milk. With such a minimum amount of starter per 100 liters, it will be very difficult to measure its weight to prepare one wheel of cheese weighing 1.5 kg.
It should be noted that heads of lighter weight can be prepared at home, but the following factor should be taken into account: the separation of whey in brine cheeses occurs naturally, without the use of presses, under the pressure of the product’s own weight. Therefore, based on the laws of physics, with a head weight of 0.5 kg, the process of squeezing out the serum will be slower and less efficient.
The ratio of fresh milk and fermented milk products is 2:1. It will be very convenient if, immediately before starting cooking, dilute sour cream or thick yogurt with some fresh milk: this will allow you to pour in the sour mass more evenly and avoid the formation of lumps in the cheese dough.
To start making Adyghe cheese at home, it remains to consider the requirements for the quality of the raw materials used and the standard requirements for the finished product. Of course, natural, whole milk, which can be purchased from farmers or at specialized markets for agricultural products, is best suited for making cheese. The fat content of Adyghe cheese is, according to standard requirements, 45%; humidity – up to 60%; salt content – 2%.
To obtain cheese of exactly this quality, the raw milk used for its preparation must correspond to these indicators as much as possible. It is allowed to use dry concentrates, which can be used to bring natural skim milk to the desired fat content. It is also possible to use a combination of skim milk and full-fat sour cream to obtain the required fat content.
In general, in your own kitchen, GOST rules do not have absolute power, but you can give free rein to your creative potential.
Features of smoking certain types of cheeses
Let's consider the features of preparing various types of smoked cheeses.
Features of smoking suluguni
This is a brined product from which excess moisture must be removed before cooking.
Cooking instructions:
- Free the cheese from the brine and pat dry with paper towels.
- Leave in air for 3 hours to dry.
- Place in a cold smoker and cook on fruit tree chips for 6 hours. After 3 hours, turn the product over.
- Cool and leave to mature for 8-12 hours.
Calorie content per 100 g of product is 290 Kcal.
Features of smoking Chechil cheese (braids)
The Armenian national product chechil in the form of a braid, rope or ball is classified as a pickled cheese with a fibrous structure.
After treatment with smoke, a smoked braid acquires a bright aroma and a sharper taste. It is good for making salads with smoked cheese.
Cooking instructions:
- If the braid was in brine, pat it dry with paper towels and let air dry for 2-3 hours.
- Smoke 3-4 hours in a cold smoker over fruit wood chips (1.5-2 hours per side). Maintain the temperature no higher than 30 °C.
- Cool and leave to mature for 8 hours.
Calorie content per 100 g of product is 313 Kcal.
Chechil has the shape of a braid, tangle or tourniquet
Features of smoking scamorza
The Italian product, shaped like an elongated pear, is sold in brine. The consistency is similar to mozzarella and is available in weights from 200 to 500 g.
Cooking instructions:
- Use for smoking in its entirety.
- Before smoking, dry in a draft for at least an hour.
- Cold smoke for 3 hours at a temperature of 25-27 °C.
- Leave to ripen for 2-3 days in the air.
Use as an independent dish or for making pasta and pizza.
Calorie content per 100 g of product is 312.7 Kcal.
Features of smoking tofu
Tofu is a product for those who are lactose and milk protein intolerant. These are pieces of curdled soy milk. A product with an impersonal taste easily absorbs the aromas and tastes of spices and seasonings.
Use natural tofu for smoking or with additives - herbs, spices, pepper.
The peculiarity of tofu is that it does not melt at high temperatures and retains its shape well.
Cooking instructions:
- Prepare your smoker. Place moistened pear chips on the bottom.
- Place a wire rack and line it with foil. Place 150-200 g pieces of tofu on the foil. Close the lid.
- Light up the grill.
- Place the smoking container on the fire.
- Smoke the tofu for 10-15 minutes after smoke appears in the chamber.
- Cool, leave in the air for 6-8 hours to ventilate excess smoke and saturate the tofu with smoke products.
- Serve smoked tofu with teriyaki sauce, soy sauce, and a squeeze of lemon juice.
Calorie content per 100 g of product is 73 Kcal.
Features of smoking Adyghe cheese
Features of smoking Adyghe cheese:
- The consistency of the cheese is porous, it is easily saturated with smoke.
- It is enough to smoke hot for 2 minutes and cool without removing it from the smokehouse. The product will have a slight aroma and taste of smoke.
- The cold smoking time can be increased to 1-2 days.
- It melts less than hard cheeses and remains dense after cooling.
Otherwise, prepare according to the hot and cold smoking instructions described above.
Calorie content per 100 g of product is 240 Kcal.
Smoked Adyghe cheese
Preparation of Adyghe cheese
The recipe for making Adyghe cheese is hundreds of years old. Even in ancient times, not a single Caucasian family started eating until dishes with Adyghe cheese were placed on the table. In real modern times, nothing has changed - dishes based on Adyghe cheese are also popular and beloved among the mountaineers.
How is Adyghe cheese made?
The production of the product is based on fresh, excellent quality and a high percentage of fat content. Cow's, measles', and whole sheep's milk can be used to produce cheese. The dairy product is heated to 95 degrees in special vats, and then mixed with special beneficial lactic bacteria or whey.
After the reaction of heated milk and whey, curd-like flakes are formed on the surface of the liquid, which are carefully collected using special grids in a gauze cloth. After this, the rag bag is hung, this allows the cheese to get rid of excess liquid. The product should remain in this state for several hours. As soon as the cheese is freed from excess liquid, it is manually pressed, sprinkled with salt and formed into a semi-oval.
This production technology allows the product to retain all its most valuable qualities. A special advantage of the production of Adyghe cheese is that only natural, high-quality ingredients are used in its preparation. The result is a tasty and healthy product that has a number of medicinal and health-improving qualities.
How to properly store smoked cheese
Store cheese in the refrigerator at 4-6 °C. When storing, observe the proximity of the products: do not place raw products or products with a strong smell nearby.
Do not leave the product unpackaged. Use food foil, parchment, containers. The packaging should not be sealed.
Observe the following storage periods:
- Hard cheeses - no more than 15 days.
- Soft - a week.
- Pickled cheeses - a week.
- Chechil, vacuum-packed braid - a month.
- Tofu - 5 days.
Proper storage of Adyghe cheese
Since the product consists only of natural ingredients, the longer it is stored, the less benefit it retains. According to the rules, Adyghe cheese must be stored for less than a month; subsequently, the product not only loses its beneficial qualities, but also becomes very harmful to the human body.
How to store Adyghe cheese?
- The ideal place to store the product is a refrigerator, where the ambient temperature does not exceed 6 degrees. Under such conditions, the product retains its unique benefits for one week.
- After opening the package (if the cheese was purchased in a store), the product must be transferred to a glass container that has a tight-fitting lid.
- It is not recommended to freeze Adyghe cheese, since after defrosting the product will lose some of its beneficial qualities, and when consumed it will begin to break and crumble.
- Smoked Adyghe cheese can be stored in the refrigerator for several months, but the product must be freed from foreign odors.
- Since Adyghe cheese is excellent at absorbing foreign odors, it must be stored separately from products with specific or pungent aromas.
On a note
Do you want to please your loved ones with delicious smoked cheese? Remember:
- Use only fresh cheese for smoking.
- If you need to quickly cook smoked meats, use liquid smoke instead of smoking.
- To smoke, place the product in a preheated smokehouse.
- If you don't have a home smoker, replace it with an oven.
- Store smoked foods in the refrigerator.
Try smoking different types of cheese, compare, experiment, choose the best for yourself!
