Messzelátó Egyesület

From Guri and Milla's blog

As part of our series of do-it-yourself workshops, we taught an eager group of students how to make cheese this Saturday. The whole cheese making business is fairly easy (especially the most basic recipes), as long as you get hold of the magic component that is rennet (or oltó in Hungarian). This mysterious enzyme is found in the fourth stomach of calves (perhaps a disturbing fact for many vegetarians) and helps coagulate milk so that it separates. In Hungary you have to order rennet from a special institute, and the minimum quantity for order is enough to make your own weight in cheese. Thankfully, we have a connection with a special cheese lady who already makes loads of cheese daily (for sale at a market), and who was willing to give us a couple of milliliters for free. 

The cheese program in our workshop ended up being quite Hungarian, which the Hungarian participants naturally didn't mind at all. We first did gomolya cheese, which is made by boiling fresh milk to 32 degrees and then adding the rennet to separate the milk into curds and whey. When drained for about half an hour, salts and spices can be added to the mass and the cheese is ready for consumption. Yum!

The second cheese, parenyica is made from day-old gomolya, which has developed a certain acidity from standing in room temperature overnight. This makes it ready to transform into a completely different cheese. The mass is heated in 70 degree water until soft and then flattened into a long strip that is cooled down in salted water before rolled into a perfect little parenyica. 

Our cheese workshop was a success, evident in how much of the cheese that was actually eaten at the workshop, and not taken home by the participants. As for the workshop teachers, we have had enough cheese in the past month and weeks to last us a lifetime, and I for one will probably lay low on the cheese front for a little while. At least until the next tempting recipe reveals itself...