Another Year in Spain - September 2008 - part four

First attempts at cheesemaking

 Way back at the beginning of the year having visited my neighbours' goat and sheep farm I did some research on cheesemaking. Well finally I got my act together and had a first experimental trial with feta as it is quick and easy and you dont have to wait six months to eat it....

Now my daughter Sarah is way ahead of me and making goudas which will have to wait at least six months before eating - that is if she can keep her gouda loving partner out of the larder. (She is in practice for her move up a mountain in the South Tyrol).

She was able to give me some hints and along with my reading  - here you go.

Making feta cheese: My first nice little cheese at the half way stage and notice the whey...

This came from one litre of goat's milk. I think next time I will go up to three litres.

 What I intend to do next is to cube it and put it in a 16% salt brine for a few days. If it is too salty at that point you can put it in milk for a while in the same way one would reduce the saltiness of anchovies.

My idea is then to pack in olive oil with some coriander.

 The  hardest ingredient to find was rennet, the enzyme that curdles milk - what was the spanish name and where to buy it.

Dont you just love the internet? Put in the right word and out came a google article giving the word for rennet in lads of languages.

So cuajo  is the spanish word for rennet. Where to buy?  Well I just ask the local women in the shops and invariably someone knows the answer to these kinds of questions.

The pharmacia!   Correcto.  Then of course you start to see the word everywhere.

Most interestingly in my favourite non-chain supermarket in Puerto Lumbreras I also noticed a packet made by Royal which was sweetened rennet for making junket.  It's years since I have made junket! So had to have some of that as well.

Sarah tells me you cant make beer and cheese in the same space because of competing enzymes so she thinks I should do a deal with Brewery Sacon. Cheese for real ale.

Ref said real ale, I had an email yesterday from the brewer  who said he had been surfing the net for, guess, articles on real ale in Spain and what came up third on the list?  my nativespain article,