Hello hello, I am an uncle to make Western food, today I want to talk to you about [cheese (cheese)] this magical and charming ingredient, it can be said to be an indispensable and important role in Western food. Why I wanted to talk about this topic, because of a shopping experience I had the other night.
One night I went to the supermarket to buy ingredients, and a girl next to me wanted to buy cheese and go back to making pasta, and then the supermarket clerk kept selling her Italian buffalo cheese. Later, when I went up to ask, I learned that she bought the cheese to make pasta with white juice, so this buffalo cheese was obviously not suitable, so I suggested that she put it back and buy other types of cheese.
If you can't tell which cheese you need to use for which dish, or if you want to know a little bit about cheese, then the next content should be enlightening to you.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" When did > cheese start to be available? </h1>
The history of cheese in the West dates back to before the 3rd century BC, and during the ancient Greek period, cheese was used to worship the gods, and the classic cheesecake was born in this period. By the time of ancient Rome, cheese-making techniques were more sophisticated, and spread throughout Europe with the expansion of Rome.
So is cheese a Western patent? No, china also has cheese, especially in Places like Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and Yunnan. Moreover, the oldest surviving cheese in the world is not found in Europe, but in Xinjiang, China. The oldest cheese was found on the "Little River Princess" unearthed in Ruoqiang County, which has a history of more than 3600 years.
Inner Mongolian cheese
Cheese was once very popular in China, especially during the Wei and Jin dynasties, when the northern peoples established political power, and the tradition of "eating meat and drinking cheese" gradually became popular. However, most of the ancient Chinese period was dominated by the agricultural economy, and animal husbandry was not developed, so cheese gradually faded out of China's table.
Animal husbandry in the West has always been very developed, so the cheese eating tradition has not been broken, and it has been passed down to this day, and the industry has evolved thousands of cheese varieties.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > why is it called "cheese"? </h1>
The English name of cheese is Cheese, which translates to cheese, and the word "cheese" belongs to the paraphrasing. The word cheese means two things, 1. Semi-coagulated or coagulated dairy products made from the milk of animals such as cattle and sheep. 2. Paste-like food made from fruit. Cheese also takes the first meaning.
Cheese is also just a general term, and the names for cheese vary from country to country. For example, the French call it "fromage", the Germans call it "kaese", and the Italians call it "formaggio".
The word Fromage originally came from the name of the mold that made cheese. Initially people used a mold with holes to coagulate the milk and then drain it. These cheese drainers are called "forma" in Latin, meaning wicker containers for people to use to put curd. In the thirteenth century, "forma" became "formage", and by the fifteenth century, the proper noun "fromage" appeared.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > common cheese varieties around the world</h1>
There are thousands of cheese varieties around the world, and there are more than a thousand in France alone. Today, I will introduce you to some common cheese varieties that can be bought in China, so that everyone has a new understanding.
1. Cheddar cheese
First of all, from the beginning of what we are most familiar with, that is, the cheese slices that we often use, sandwiched in sandwiches or hamburgers, which are actually a kind of reconstituted cheese product, using Cheddar as a raw material, called Cheddar processed cheese in English.
Cheddar cheese
Produced in the UK, Cheddar cheese will be softer in texture, rich in flavor, with colors ranging from white to pale yellow, and is currently one of the most consumed cheeses in the world. Generally speaking, cheddar has a moisture content of 36%, a fat content of 33%, a protein content of 31%, and 721.4 mg of calcium per 100 grams of cheddar cheese! Therefore, the nutritional content of cheddar cheese will be higher than that of remade cheese (such as cheese slices). And the most important point is that all the original cheese, in which the bacteria used for fermentation are live bacteria rather than dead bacteria, which is beneficial to the human body. The large-hole cheese that appears in the cartoon Tom and Jerry is also a type of cheddar cheese.
If you want to use it in a sandwich or burger, you can buy that cheese slice, and if you want to use it in a dish, you can buy a whole piece of cheddar cheese.
2. Mozzarella cheese
Many people have actually been exposed to mozzarella cheese, and the layer of brush on the pizza we usually eat is made of mozzarella cheese.
It is a kind of cheese produced in southern Italy, the taste is relatively light, there are two common on the market, one is a lump mozzarella cheese, and the other is a bagged mozzarella cheese crumble.
There is also a fresh mozzarella cheese, which is generally spherical and relatively rare in China.
Fresh mozzarella cheese
The real Mozzarella cheese is made with water milk, but the modern more common is ordinary milk products, ordinary milk products color light yellow, containing milk fat about 50%, authentic buffalo milk products are very white, there is a very thin layer of bright shell, immature texture is very soft, very elastic, easy to slice, maturity period of about 1 to 3 days, shelf life of no more than 1 week. Due to its short shelf life, fresh mozzarella cheese is usually sold in salted water sealed and refrigerated.
Fresh mozzarella cheese balls
Mozzarella cheese crumbles can be used to make pizza, cheese cubes can be used to make dishes such as pasta or sauces, and fresh mozzarella cheese balls can be used to make salads.
3. Brie cheese (Brie)
Brie cheese is one of the most famous cheeses in France, but also the world-renowned "king of cheese", brie cheese texture is soft, the skin will have texture, generally in the shape of a dish, the general color from light white to light yellow, soft and salty, creamy.
It can be eaten directly, paired with alcohol, or baked in the oven and dipped in bread.
4. Parmesan cheese (Parmesan)
Pasta is sprinkled with parmesan cheese
If you like Italian food, or often watch western food making online, then you must have heard of Parmesan cheese. It is a kind of hard cheese, but also one of the most famous and important cheese varieties in Italy, of which Parmigiano-Reggiano is the most representative, other places can be called Parmesan cheese, and only in northern Italy Reggio Emilia, Parma, Modena these production areas can be called Parmigiano-Reggiano
This single cheese of more than 30 kilograms is very impressive in appearance, to make a less appropriate metaphor, it looks a bit like a Chinese vegetable pier. Most of the ingredients used to make Parmesan cheese are milk from cows raised by the cheese country, and each parmigiano-Reggiano will be marked with an exclusive number and label that confirms its identity, including the cheese workshop number, consorzio batch number, production month and year, and even traced back to the specific milk of which cow.
Generally speaking, regular grade Parmesan cheese takes 12 months to make, while Parmigiano-Reggiano takes more than 24 months to mature before it is sold. Due to its long maturation, it is easier for the body to absorb and digest than other cheeses.
5. Blue cheese
Blue cheese is produced in the Southern Pyrenees region of France, which has been producing a blue-striped sheep milk cheese called Roquefort since 2700 years ago. This cheese, wet, brittle, slightly closer, has a strong musty aroma, when the cheese melts in the mouth, there is a little spicy, accompanied by a unique aroma, as well as a little sweetness after the coking of sheep's milk and a strong metallic taste of blue mold. Since it is made with sheep's milk, it has a slightly sweet taste.
Traditional blue cheese, no crusty, white matrix, with blue mold, slightly strong taste, the average person may have difficulty accepting that taste. Blue cheese can also be eaten in a variety of ways, and can be eaten directly with sake, or it can be used to mix salads and make pasta.
The above 5 kinds are the few cheeses that are common in our country, of course, there are many goat cheeses, goat milk cheeses, etc. Here is not much to introduce.
In short, if you want to really understand it, you still need to taste it, after all, you have eaten it yourself to know how the real taste is, try it more, maybe you will open up a new world of cheese cuisine.