Gurt (Turkmen)Turkmenistan
Also called Gurt.
Small salted balls of strained yoghurt, dried in the sun until rock-hard. Thick süzme (gatyk), made from milk and a starter, is mixed with salt, rolled by hand into balls and dried on trays, about 2 days in the sun in one home recipe.
- Base
- Salted balls of gatyk (süzme), dried in the sun
- Salt the süzme
- Roll into balls
- Dry in the sun2–5 days
Safety: A dried, salted product.
Kalti (Tusheti)Georgia, Tusheti
A boundary product, a heat-set whey curd rather than a fermented cheese. The whey left from making cow or sheep cheese is heated over a wood fire and stirred, the curd is dried in canvas bags, and the balls are rubbed with salt and finished inside a guda, the sheepskin bag.
- Base
- Whey left over from cow or sheep cheese making, described as an aged cottage cheese
- Heat the whey
- Dry the curd in canvas bags
- Salt the balls and finish in the guda
Safety: The whey is heated, and the product is salted and dried.
Naizha / Nailao (Inner Mongolia)China, Inner Mongolia
Also called 奶渣 (naizha), 奶酪 (nailao).
Chinese names used in Inner Mongolia for Mongol dried and fresh milk curds of the aaruul and byaslag type. No source found describes a naizha make with numbers, so this entry follows the dried-curd family.
- Milk
- cow milk
- Ripening
- dried or fresh
Made like Dried sour-milk curd family (qurut, aaruul, kashk, chhurpi).
Qurut (Afghanistan, Pashtun Pakistan)Afghanistan and Pakistan
Also called quoroot, kurut, qurut.
Yoghurt is strained, salted and dried into hard balls called quoroot, which are reconstituted in water before they go into cooking.
- Form
- Hard, dried, salted balls of strained yoghurt
- Strain the yoghurt
- Salt and roll into balls
- Dry
- Reconstitute for cooking
TakammartSouthern Algeria
A Tuareg dried cheese. Whole goat, sheep or cow milk is curdled with rennet from a kid's stomach, the curd is laid on a mat and pressed to drain, and the cheese is dried for 2–3 days and kept in the shade. In Niger the same kind of cheese is sold as tchoukou, which is also called Tikomart in the Tuareg language.
- Curdle with kid rennet
- Drain on a mat under pressure
- Dry2–3 days
Safety: The thesis account of the Hoggar cheese sets fresh milk with kid rennet and records no heating step, and the cheese is dried for only 2 to 3 days. The Niger tchoukou note, by contrast, pasteurises the milk at 85 °C for 20 minutes. The US FDA says raw milk can carry human pathogens, including E. coli O157:H7, Salmonella, Listeria monocytogenes and Campylobacter jejuni.