White Cheese from Bulgaria

Bulgaria is famous all over the world with its white cheese from Bulgaria – the main national food of the Bulgarians.

The white cheese from Bulgaria is a concentrated milk food with varying taste and flavor, depending on its production technology. It has been home produced since ancient times. It is served as an appetizer, or as an ingredient of many dishes of the Bulgarian cuisine. Here follows a recipe for the preparation of white brined sheep cheese from Bulgaria. It can be consumed separately, or in combination with other products. It is must try.

Depend on the milk the cheese is produced from there are different kinds of Bulgarian white cheese like sheep white cheese, caw white cheese, goats white cheese, and mixed.

My grandmother called Yana still prepares in her small farm the most delicious goats white cheese I have ever tasted. I was eating this cheese with relish as a child, and now I don’t have patience to visit her and to try again this home made cheese!

Dear my reader, if you are brave enough you could try to make some cheese at home, even it seems to be difficult at a first look. I hope the recipe given below will help you in this endeavor!

Ingredients for White Cheese from Bulgaria

10 liters of fresh sheep milk
20 drops (20 ml) of rennet
salt (200g per 1 liter of water for the salting brine, and 120g per 1 liter of water for the preservation brine)

Filter the milk. Warm it up to a temperature of 70C for 10 minutes, not allowing it to boil and then cool it to 33-34C. Add the rennet diluted by boiled and cooled water in a proportion of 1:10, stir well the milk and leave it at the same temperature for one hour to turn into cheese. The cheese should be drained in a cheese-cloth (gauze) for 2 hours in order to remove the whey. The cheese obtained and drained should be placed in a strainer and pressed by weights for at least 6 hours. Then you can cut it into lumps and put them in salted brine.

The brine is made of 1 liter of water and 200g of salt. The cheese should be steeped in the brine for not less than 24 hours, in order to become lightly salty in taste. Finally, arrange the cheese lumps in the utensils where they will be preserved and pour preservation brine (120g of salt per 1 liter of water) on it. The cheese will be ready for consumption in 60 days and during this time temperature in the room should measure about 10C. Later you can store it in a refrigerator.


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