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Cheese from Mongolia

Aaruulааруул

Milk is soured into tarag (yoghurt), then heated until the curd separates. The curd is drained and pressed in a cloth bag, cut or moulded into small pieces, and dried in the sun and wind until hard. It is eaten as a long-keeping snack.

Fully documentedCheese4.2 days – 5.2 days

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedThe sources we found give no fixed amounts. The numbers below come from a kitchen trial in a Swedish thesis and from a Mongolian drying study.
Whole milk (cow, yak, goat or camel)Horse milk would not form a curd when fermented[daginder2015]
Tarag starter, or sour yoghurt and wheyA thermophilic yoghurt culture (Streptococcus thermophilus and Lactobacillus delbrueckii) in the thesis trials[daginder2015][jargal2024]
Sugar, or dried sea buckthorn or goji berriesoptionalAdded to the curd before it is cut and dried[daginder2015]
Startersour yoghurt (tarag) and whey added to heated milk in the traditional method; a freeze-dried thermophilic yoghurt culture in the thesis trials

Total time across the recorded steps: 4.2 days – 5.2 days

Start
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shapes, not to countLactic acid bacteria43 °CMilk sugarLactic acid

What changes: Warm milk with a starter sets and sours into tarag

Step 1 of 5
Sour the milk into tarag
Time
4 h
Reported
Temperature
43 °C
Reported
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Lactic acid bacteria

Output: tarag (yoghurt).

Flavour
sour
Texture
set
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

thermophilic lactic acid bacteria sour and set the milk

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Milk is soured into tarag (yoghurt), then heated until the curd separates. The curd is drained and pressed in a cloth bag, cut or moulded into small pieces, and dried in the sun and wind until hard. It is eaten as a long-keeping snack. Made in 5 steps over 4.2 days – 5.2 days. The longest step, dry in the sun and wind, takes 4–5 days (Jargalsaikhan A 2024) and runs at 44–55 °C (Jargalsaikhan A 2024). Predominant lactic acid bacteria across 66 samples of Mongolian dairy products does most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step4–5 daysReported[jargal2024]Dry in the sun and wind
Temperature44–55 °CReported[jargal2024]Dry in the sun and wind
AciditypH 4.7–5Reported[jargal2024]Heat until the curd separates

What makes this one different

Aaruul is dried in the sun and wind. Hard chhurpi is smoked over a fire, and Kazakh qurt is salted and rolled into balls. Byaslag is the same kind of curd pressed but eaten fresh, not dried.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Pot-distilled curd aaruulJargalsaikhan and Dorjsuren name pot-distilled curd as one of three ways to get the curd, beside yoghurt curd and enzyme-acid curd.
  • Berry or sugar aaruulSea buckthorn, goji berries or sugar are worked into the curd before drying.

Safety

A 2015 thesis says boiling and drying kill the lactic bacteria of the tarag, and that aaruul has a long shelf life. Sun-drying in the open leaves the curd open to dust and insects. In one study, aaruul and other dried Mongolian foods (11 samples) had no detectable aflatoxin.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

Wilkin and colleagues (2020) write that historical Chinese documents record dairy foods eaten in the Xiongnu period (about 200 BC to 100 AD), including dried curds from ruminant milk (aaruul).

  1. [jargal2024] Jargalsaikhan A., Dorjsuren B. 2024, Results of optimization of technological parameters for aaruul drying equipment, Mongolian Journal of Agricultural Sciences 17(40):7–12paper
  2. [daginder2015] Daginder E. 2015, Aaruul – a Mongolian dried curdled milk, evaluation of the consumer acceptance and the health aspect, MSc thesis, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciencespaper
  3. [takeda2011] Takeda S. et al. 2011, The investigation of probiotic potential of lactic acid bacteria isolated from traditional Mongolian dairy products, Animal Science Journal 82:571–579 (abstract)paper
  4. [wilkin2020] Wilkin S. et al. 2020, Dairy pastoralism sustained eastern Eurasian steppe populations for 5,000 years, Nature Ecology & Evolution 4:346–355paper
  5. [popp2014] Popp W. et al. 2014, Aflatoxin exposure may not play a role in liver cancer development in Mongolia, Digestion 89:268–271 (abstract)paper