Queso Fresco means Fresh Cheese and is semi-soft cheese. I prefer cheese with lots of flavor, and this Queso Fresco has many variations. Queso Fresco is of Latin American origin. It is lightly pressed and ready to eat in just a few days.

Correct temperatures are very important in cheese making, so ensure to use a good thermometer. The easiest way to control the temperature of the curds is to use a homemade double boiler. Place the cheese making pot into the canning kettle and place on the stove. Fill the canner with water up to the level of the milk in the cheese making pot. Then place a thermometer in the water of the canner as well as the milk. This way you can tell the temperature of the water, which in turn, helps you control the temperature of the milk and curds.

Ingredients:

• 2 gallons of unpasteurized goat milk

• 4 oz. mesophilic culture

• 1/4 tsp. calf lipase powder (mild “piccante”)

• 1/2 tsp. Liquid rennet dissolved in 1/4 Cup water

• 2 Tablespoons kosher salt .

Bring the milk to 86° and add the mesophilic culture and lipase. Stir well and let set, to ripen, for 1 hour. Add the rennet and stir briskly for 15 seconds. Cover the pot and let the milk set for 45 minutes, or until you get a clean break. Hold the milk at a temperature of 86° for the entire time.

Cut the curds into 1/4″ pieces with a stainless steel knife. This always seem to be the trickiest part of cheese making, but take your time, and don’t worry if all the curds are not cut to exactly 1/4″. After you have cut the curds, do not stir them yet. Let them rest, undisturbed for 10 minutes

Now, you can stir the curds and cut any that you had missed. If you stir the curds with a big wire whisk, this will cut any curds you missed automatically. Raise the temperature of the curds to 95° over the next 20 minutes, stirring occasionally so the curds do not stick together. Let the curds settle for 5 minutes, undisturbed.

Drain the whey from the curds. You can conserve drained whey and use for whey based cheese making like Ricotta. Now, leave the curds in their cheese making pot that is placed inside the canner. Make sure the water in the canner is kept at 95° and this will allow you to hold the curds at a temperature of 95°. Hold the curds at 95° for 10 minutes, stirring with your hand occasionally so that the curds don’t stick together.

After you have held the curds for at 95° for 10 minutes, stir in the salt. At this point in the cheese making you could spice up your cheese by adding some herbs, such as chives, or even minced jalapena peppers, if you’d like.

Line a cheese mold with cheesecloth and add the curds. Press the cheese at 10 pounds for 10 minutes, remove it from the press, flip it over and place it back in the press. Continue pressing at 20 pounds for 1 hours and then raise the weight to 35 pounds for 6 hours.

After it has pressed for six hours, remove the cheese from the mold and let it air dry on a rack overnight. The next day, put it in a ziploc bag or wrap it and refrigerate the cheese for several days before testing. Honestly, it is worth the wait. If you taste the cheese too soon, it may seem “rubbery”. Additionally, the flavor will develops during the short “aging” process. Queso Fresco cheese will keep for several weeks in the refrigerator. Previous experience proved that this cheese does not freeze well.

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Now that you have this rubbery ball of cheese, what do you do with it or how do you enjoy it? Paneer is like tofu,  it will take on the flavor of the food it is cooked with. Just cut it into bite-sized cubes and throw it into chili or spaghetti.  If you love pasta cooked in whey you can always save whey just for this purpose. Try serving your chili over vermicelli cooked in whey, topped with a sprinkle of cheese, some sprouts and a dollop of goat yogurt.

You could use Paneer as a meat extender or replacement. If you are a vegetarian, you can use a lot of Paneer. You make “chicken a la king” using cubes of Paneer instead of meat. A quick dinner is mac’n cheese, made from a box, but also add onions, Paneer cubes, peas and buttermilk. When you make taco meat, cut it up in tiny cubes and simmer it with the meat for about an hour.

You can also marinade Paneer and throw it on top of salads or use it in stir-fry. Paneer is really in its element when used in curry. Serve the curry over rice cooked with whey instead of water and add a handful of raisins and a clove to the rice as well to make it really authentic.

There are endless uses for Paneer, so make some of this quick and easy cheese and experiment for yourself. Enjoy!

Panir (also spelled Paneer) or Queso Blanco (kay’so blan’ko) is easy to make and there is so much you can do with it. Panir as it is known in India, is also called Queso Blanco (white cheese) in Latin America. Panir or Queso Blanco is perfect for “first timers” but even the more advanced can try it or try it again. It is quick and simple to make, and takes very little special equipment. It is a bland cheese that is kind of rubbery and will not melt. A wonderfully tasty food source and excellent meat extender. You can actually, sprinkled with seasoned salt and serve as a snack . It is also one of the few cheeses that freezes well, so you can stock up for the dry times.

Panir is sometimes called “Vinegar Cheese” because vinegar is used as an “acid precipitant”, that is, the acid of the vinegar (along with higher heat) makes the curds separate from the whey. The cheese cannot be made using low temperatures.

You can use as much goat milk as you’d like, 1 gallon or much more as long as your pot is big enough. Do not use an aluminum pot. Over direct heat, warm the milk to 183°- 185° (not any higher), and maintain that temperature for 10 minutes. Stir it often to keep it from scorching and if it does scorch, use a stainless steel scrubby to clean your pot later.

With the milk still on the heat, while stirring, add about 1/4 Cup of white vinegar per gallon of milk. It taste better with white vinegar than cider vinegar. You do not need even to measure the vinegar, just pour in a glug, stir, look, pour in a glug, stir, etc. until the curd separates. The separation should happen right away. When the curd separates cleanly from the whey (it will look like very fine, white particles floating in the greenish whey), pour it into a cheesecloth lined colander and put the colander over another pot to save the whey for later use. Use real cheese-making cheesecloth and not the ones you can buy at the grocery store.

Tie the corners of the cloth together and hang the bag to drain for a few hours. Refrigerate your cheese after it has drained. It will keep for a couple of weeks.

Glass is the best storage to store fresh  goat milk because it is easily cleaned and sterilized. Use 1 quart wide mouth mason jars and gallon glass jars (1 gallon pickle jars). I would suggest the wide mouth jars because you can fit your hand into them and really scrub them and get them clean. Use quart mason jars to store if you do not have so much milk to store. Otherwise, go for bigger jars if you have so much milk to store. Do not use plastic container for storage. Plastic cannot be properly cleaned and sterilized. Never reuse milk jugs from the store; they cannot be cleaned well enough at all and will contaminate your fresh milk.

How to store fresh goat milk for use during the winter?

All you have to do is just pour the fresh milk (still warm from the goat) into new quart Ziploc freezer bags and stack them in the freezer. Use REAL Ziploc bags because “off brands” tend to leak. Do not freeze in glass! Glass is extremely dangerous, it can break very easily in the freezer - as the milk expands when it freezes. Never freeze in milk jugs from the store; they cannot be cleaned well enough at all and will contaminate your milk. When you thaw your milk (in the Ziploc bags) be ready for the bags to leak, they normally do. Put the bags in a dish as you thaw the milk. I thaw in the fridge and sometimes in the microwave. Thawed milk can have clumps in it but, it is nothing to worry about. I find that frozen milk will keep fine for 6 - 8 months in the deep freeze.