Munajuusto (Finnish Egg Cheese) Cheese Making - John's Cheese #047

[Cheese Head]

First time making Finnish Cheese Munajuusto (Egg Cheese), based on forum member Riha's Munajuusto recipe.

RECORDS

• Aug 30, 2009:
• 2:50PM: Poured 3 US quarts of store bought pasteurized homogenized whole cow's milk from store into stockpot on large gas burner ring on stove, started heating, stirring occasionally to reduce hot spot on bottom. Meanwhile separated 3 fresh eggs and whisked together whites with 1 US quart of store bought low fat pasteurized homogenized cow's buttermilk.
• 3:10PM: Milk just started to boil (when it does boil, boils very quickly), turned off heat, poured in buttermilk with egg whites into milk while stirring. Covered, set aside for curds and whey to separate, put timer in pocket and went and washed car.
• 3:35PM: Drained off whey, through metal colander (lost too much curds) and mixed 3 egg yolks and 1 teaspoon salt into curds.
• 3:40PM: Placed curds in 3 small Ricotta draining baskets to same height on draining board beside sink to drain.
• 3:53PM: Turned cheeses.
• 4:17PM: Turned cheeses.
• 4:55PM: Turned cheeses.
• 7:00PM: Turned cheeses.
• 9:35PM: Removed cheeses from baskets, placed on mat on plate in fridge with bowl over top to reduce drying.
• Aug 31, 2009:
• 6:12PM: Placed cheeses in oven on grill setting and cooked until brown & just barely black.
• 6:25PM: Cooked other side until brown & just barely black then removed from oven.
• 6:45PM: Cooled, and served for dinner. Light, little fluffy, nice mild taste.

NOTES

• Draining curds through small hole size metal colander was not good, lost too many small curds through holes and down drain.
• Very bright orange yolks!
• After stirring in yolks and salt, curds were consistency of lightly scrambled eggs.
• Next time, to develop more flavor, i) don't heat milk so hot before adding buttermilk as thermophilic bacteria in buttermilk cannot survive above 140F/60C and ii) let cheeses sit outside fridge overnight.
• Next time use oil in pan before placing in oven.

[Cheese Head]

Pictures #1 . . .

[Cheese Head]

Pictures #2 . . .

[Cheese Head]

Pictures #3 to go here . . .

[Cheese Head]

Pictures #4 . . .

[Cheese Head]

Just ate one for dinner, tasted great, gives new meaning to the term Cheese Burger!

[DeejayDebi]

Looks rather yummy John. So tell us .... is it cheese or is it an omelette with cheese?

My turn to buy bagels at work in a few weeks this may be better than cream cheese maybe with sausage or ham?

[Cheese Head]

I'd say more omelete than cheese, that's why when & if I do it again, to encourage the cheese flavour I won't heat milk as hot as kills thermophilic culture in buttermilk and I'd probably leave it at room temp over night.

[DeejayDebi]

Hmmmm what if you were to add the eggs after cutting the curds? Probably a different animal then huh?

[Cheese Head]

No curd cutting in this recipe.

[DeejayDebi]

Oh yeah  ...

[Zoey]

Hmm. Interesting actually... I make Finnish buttermilk cheese which is practically the same as this, but without the eggs. Now that you mention the omelet -thing, I find that my buttermilk cheese actually also tastes like omelet, even it doesn't have the eggs. Adding one or two eggs actually  doesn't do much of a difference except makes the whey separate more efficciently. I don't try to optimize that though, since these batches are so small that I easily think of ways to use the (richer) whey.

I guess it has quite a lot to do with the texture of the curds, which resembles scrambled eggs. John, do you agree?

[riha]

Nice going, John! Very good looking cheeses.

I don't bother turning my cheeses during the draining, but I do pat the surface even, to make it smooth as possible. I like the way smooth cheese grills better than the way uneven surface does.

For less eggy flavor you might want to try the version that doesn't separate yolks and whites. Just mix the eggs (and salt) to the buttermilk and proceed normally. This way there's also no fuss with draining the curds before egg addition, you can just pour everything to the mould.

I have never thought about mesophilic culture dying in such a heat. Good thought. I must also try this low-temp method.

When frying the cheeses, I use tin foil. Cheeses don't stick to it. Very handy stuff. I tried using the sieve (there's a pic in my post) I use when frying leipäjuusto, but that didn't work since egg cheeses got stuck to it.

[Cheese Head]

Thanks riha, also thanks for the polite correction, you are right, buttermilk has basically mesophilic not thermophilic as I mistyped in my post above.

This means that the bacteria is really dead and thus no need to sit at room temperature overnight as nothing good will happen, just give a chance for bad airborne bacteria to take hold. To keep the meso bacteria in buttemilk alive, you'd have to come way way down in temp to 105F/41C or lower to keep it alive and get a more cheesy taste.

The barely boiling step is really to pasteurize (or re-pasteurize if store bought) the milk. Normally after pasteurization, you drop temp quickly, maybe you could do that and then add the buttermilk . . .

[Zoey]

I've understood that the temperature is because Finns traditionally don't make ricotta, and therefore we want to use the ricotta curds already in the first cheese. This is economic, since traditionally it was important to use as lot of your food as possible, not discarding anything. This is how I'd interpret it. Doesn't the egg mixture actually help coagulate the ricotta-type proteins (those that coagulate in higher temps) so that they form bigger curds? That's how I've thought of it at least.

The overnight draining lets the curds mat together and form a more solid mass. I don't know if it does something else, but the difference in texture is incredible. First it is crumbly / breakable and the next day it is soft, a little rubbery (in a good way).

My own recipe is pretty much the same with non-separated egg yolks and whites or completely without eggs. The eggs don't do much of a difference in my opinion - probably help in coagulation and of course increase end product mass. My old traditional cookbook from 1928 says you should use eggs when they are cheap and refrain from using them when they are expensive. That's how it worked back then.