Queso Casero (Homemade Fresh Cheese, 3 Ingredients)
A litre of milk set with a quarter of a rennet tablet, drained and pressed into a round. Three ingredients, and the milk has to be ordinary pasteurised rather than long-life or it will not set.
Servings: 4
Ingredients
- 1 liter milk ordinary pasteurised, not UHT: see the notes
- 1 tablet of rennet you will use a quarter of it per litre
- Salt to taste
Instructions
- Warm the milk until it is lukewarm, add salt to taste and stir. Take it off the heat before adding the rennet.
- Break the tablet into 4 equal parts and use only one quarter. Crush it and mix it into the milk.
- Leave it undisturbed until the milk has set into a solid curd. It usually takes around half an hour, and it is ready when a clean finger pushed into it leaves a clean break rather than a milky smear. Then tip it into a strainer or a sieve and let the whey drain off.
- Press the curd into a round and put it in the refrigerator.
Notes
Use ordinary pasteurised milk, not UHT. This is the single reason most homemade cheese fails and the recipe never mentions it. Long-life milk has been heated so far that its proteins can no longer form a curd, and rennet added to it produces nothing at all. In Colombia the recipe says leche en bolsa, bagged milk, because that is the everyday pasteurised kind; the point is the pasteurisation, not the bag. Lukewarm, not hot. Rennet works at around body temperature and is destroyed by heat, which is why the first step takes the pot off the stove before the tablet goes in. If the milk is too hot to hold a finger in comfortably, let it cool. A quarter of a tablet per litre, which the recipe's own note confirms. More does not set it faster or firmer: it makes the curd tough and can leave a bitter taste. How long you drain it decides what you get. A short drain gives a soft, wet cheese; longer and heavier pressing gives something firmer that slices. Either way it is a fresh cheese and it keeps only a few days.