Acid-heat set cheeses

Dhakai paneer is the paneer of Dhaka, Bangladesh. We could not open a source that describes how it is made.

Made like Acid-heat set cheese family (FERMENTATION BOUNDARY).

A dry, sour curd cheese like a sour ricotta, made by heating yogurt or milk with citric acid, lemon juice or vinegar and hanging the curd in cheesecloth for 5–6 hours. It is a boundary entry, an acid- and heat-set curd, sometimes from cultured yogurt, with no ripening. It may be left plain or mixed with salt, garlic, herbs or spices, and fills burek and fërgesë.

1. Heat the yogurt or milk
2. Add acid so the curd forms
3. Hang in cheesecloth5–6 h
4. Season or leave plain

Safety: Heated and acidified, then eaten fresh.

• TasteAtlas, 'Gjizë'
• Wiktionary, 'gjizë'

Also called ыримшик.

A boundary product, an acid-heat curd rather than a ripened cheese. Soured milk or skimmed milk is strained of its whey or boiled to drive off water, and the white curd (ak irimshik) may be wrapped in cloth and pressed under a weight for half an hour. Boiled longer, the curd turns yellow-brown (sary or kyzyl irimshik) and is ground with butter and sugar into the sweet kospa.

Kinds

Ak (white) irimshik and sary or kyzyl (yellow or red) irimshik, browned by long boiling

1. Sour the milk
2. Strain or boil off the whey
3. Press in cloth30 min
4. Boil long for yellow irimshik (optional)

Safety: The source says the soured milk is either strained or boiled down, so white irimshik may not be heated at all. Only the long-boiled yellow form, sary irimshik, is clearly cooked.

• Пища казахов Западной Сибири - традиции и новации (Food of the Kazakhs of Western Siberia - traditions and innovations), ethnographic article based on Omsk State University expeditions 1976–1994, e-history.kz library copy (author not named in the copy)

Also called munajuusto.

A Finnish fresh cheese set by heat and acid, not by a ripening culture. Warm cow milk is brought near the boil, soured cream from milk soured for a day is whisked in with eggs, and the curd is ladled into a cloth-lined mould with sugar and salt and left to firm. Only the souring of the cream is a fermentation.

Base

Cow milk, eggs and soured cream, set by heat

Ripening

None; eaten fresh

1. Sour the cream24 h
2. Heat the milk and add cream and eggs
3. Let it curdle
4. Mould with sugar and salt1–12 h

Safety: The milk is brought to the boil before the curd forms; the cheese is fresh and unripened, so it is kept cool and eaten young.

• Pehkonen K 2024, 'A mould for traditional Finnish egg cheese', Illuminating the collections, Helsinki University Museum Flame, quoting Grotenfelt G 1916, Vanhanaikainen suomalainen maitotalous (Otava)

Also called Zieger, Formaggio fresco aromatizzato.

Zieger is a small cone of fresh skim-milk curd kneaded with chives or other herbs, salt and black pepper. Today the curd is made by heating raw skim milk to 85–90 °C and adding vinegar or citric acid, so the set is acid and heat, not microbial. In the older farm method the skimmed milk was left to sour on its own.

Rind

None; a mould bloom when mature

Size

Small cone, about 0.150 kg

Boundary

The modern curd is set by heat and acid, not by microbes

1. Skim the raw milk
2. Heat the milk85–90 °C
3. Add acid so the curd rises
4. Drain and dry the curd
5. Knead in herbs, salt and pepper
6. Shape cones and air-dry
7. Keep cool4–12 °C

Safety: The ONAF sheet has the milk heated to 85–90 °C before the curd forms, though in some places the curd comes from lactic souring instead. It has the cones sold right after making or within about 8 weeks, kept in cold rooms at 4–12 °C or in cool cellars. That is a maker's storage range, not a food-safety limit. The curd is shaped and dried in the open air after the heat step. The CDC advises people who are pregnant, aged 65 or over or with a weakened immune system to avoid fresh soft cheeses of the queso fresco type, and any cheese made with raw milk, unless heated until steaming hot, because of Listeria.

• ONAF (national organisation of cheese tasters), technical sheet 'Zieger (Formaggio fresco aromatizzato)'
• Ministero delle politiche agricole, Elenco nazionale dei prodotti agroalimentari tradizionali (L. 238/2016 art. 12), Allegato I, Provincia autonoma di Bolzano, no. 35 (copy hosted by informacibo.it, 2018)
• ONAF, scheda formaggio 'Zieger' (id 806)
• US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Preventing Listeria Infection (safer food choices)