Cheese of the Month - Fresh Cheese

We’re a little off schedule, but we’re getting back on track with a FRESH post about FRESH cheese!

As you might expect, Fresh cheese is newly made. It’s probably only a few days old, maybe even a few hours. Because they haven’t had any time to develop much flavor, they’re usually mild and sometimes slightly tangy, with the distinct flavor of the milk or cream used to make them.

Fresh cheeses are high in moisture, which means they’re highly spreadable and mixable, but also means they have a shorter shelf life. But the bonus here is that most of them are easily freezable.

A great example of fresh cheese is mozzarella — not the stuff you shred to put on a pizza, that’s something different. We’re talking about the soft stuff you slice and serve with fresh tomatoes and basil, with a little olive oil and a pinch of salt, mmmm.

Baeja Farms Fresh Goat Cheese

Here at Tale to Table, our go-to fresh cheese is Coeur de la Crème from Baetje Farms. This award-winner is the base for other Baetje flavors, from savory like Three Pepper and Herbs de Provence, to sweet like Dark Chocolate Raspberry and Pumpkin Walnut. We use it mixed with our Everything Bagel Spice Mix, and to mellow out the spiciness of Salume Beddu N’duja sausage. And Kakao uses it in their award-winning Raspberry Balsamic Vinegar and Goat Cheese Truffle.

Green Dirt Farms Fresh Sheep’s Cheese

Another fun fresh and award-winning cheese is Fresh Sheep’s Milk Cheese from Green Dirt Farm. Just a bit less tangy than the goat cheese, this cheese is just as enjoyable with either sweet or savory inclusions or accompaniments.

Lots of other great fresh cheese out there, but here’s one you can make yourself — paneer. Take one half-gallon whole milk and bring it to a boil. Take off the heat, add six tablespoons lemon juice and stir. You’ll see it start to curdle as the curd proteins separate from the whey proteins.

Let it sit for 10 minutes, and then strain it through a cheese cloth in a sieve or colander. (You can save the whey to make a delicious high-protein lemonade if you like.) Rinse the curds with cold water to remove a bit more lemon juice and cool it off, and then wrap it up in the cheesecloth and squeeze as much of the moisture out of there are you can.

With the cheese still inside the cheesecloth, shape it into a disk and set it on a plate. Then put a couple more plates on top of it to keep it compressed, and put it all in the fridge for an hour or two. This will firm it up so it won’t crumble as much. And then you’ll have a lovely fresh cheese you can fry up and use in some flavorful dish where it can soak up some good flavors, like with Clean Plate Pantry Coconut Mango Curry or Thai Red Curry.