Kefalograviera?

[Kefalograviera]

Hi, I want to use kefalograviera cheese on a pizza. Does anybody think that's a good idea? But I have found that there are different brands of this cheese and some don't melt so well.  Any suggestions as to Kefalograviera brands and where to buy them?

I'd also be curious to know anyone's suggestions for good pizza cheese besides mozzarella.

Thanks!

[mikekchar]

People who know me won't be surprised that I have opinions about pizza :-)  However, one of the things that I think is important to understand is that different people have very different expectations about what pizza is.  I'll try to explain the reasoning for my opinion.  You may very reasonably not share that opinion.

For me, pizza is bread.  It's bread with toppings, but it's fundamentally bread.  I think a pizza crust should define the pizza and the toppings should support that.  Because of that initial stance, I believe that toppings on pizza should not be overly wet.  Tomatoes should be drained thoroughly before making a sauce, otherwise the crust gets soggy.  Any vegetables should generally be cooked first so that the water is removed from them and *then* baked on the pizza.

Traditional Italian mozzarella is a high moisture cheese.  It is very different than the "low moisture mozzarella" that is usually found on American pizza.  In fact, personally, while "low moisture mozzarella" is a type of pasta filata cheese, I don't think it is mozzarella at all.  There a *many* aged, low moisture pasta filata cheeses that are *much* closer to American pizza cheese than mozzarella.

So... it would seem that I should prefer American pizza cheese on pizza.  But I don't.  To me, the secret is that mozzarella should be added in very small quantities.  While the soft stretchy texture is nice, IMHO, the reason for putting mozzarella on a pizza is the milk fat.  In Frace, it is common to put creme fraiche on pizza (ham and raw whole eggs, baked and then drizzle with creme fraiche... Has to be tried!)  It's that milk fat coupled with the lactic acid from the ferment (and this is why you need actual traditional mozzarella and not "quick" mozzarella that uses citric acid).  With an Italian pizza you then drizzle a little bit of olive oil on the top.  That mixture of milk fat and olive oil is heaven.  However, you need to be conservative because otherwise you just get a soggy mess.

There are lots of cheeses that will fit the bill for that kind of vision.  The main thing is a fresh cheese that melts enough to allow the fat to ooze out of it.  You've got to be careful of moisture content -- the more moisture it has, the less you can use.  A cheese from milk with high milk solids is going to be easiest to use -- water buffalo milk and sheep's milk are going to be the best, but some breeds of goats and cows produce milk with very high fat content.  You can also make cheese with added cream.  I wouldn't personally use aged cheeses most of the time because you want that fresh cream flavour, not the flavour from the action of lypases or proteases.

Having said all that, you can make amazing creations with all sorts of ingredients.  I love pizza with feta which is pretty much the opposite of what I'm suggesting.  I've made some really nice pizzas with aged gouda cheese.  Blue cheese pizza is amazing.  In fact, a very common pizza in fancy restaurants in Japan is gorgonzola and honey.  It's amazing.  I've also made pizzas with Brie or Camembert and honey.    Ground beef oinions and cheddar is very nice!  One crazy pizza that was popular where I grew up in Canada was: bacon, onions, potatoes, cheddar cheese and sour cream.  If you have a cheese, I think you can make a good pizza with it.  And (horrors), I've had *many* great pizzas without cheese.  Historically pizza without cheese was very popular!  Just stay away from the popular-in-Japan: mayonaise, fresh corn, potato combination (somehow made even worse by the offer to crack a raw egg on it when served at your table).

[paulabob]

From what I understand, it's not a good melting cheese, more of a grating cheese (which is also delicious on pizza). 

First hard cheese I made was a brick, and I used it on pizza, melted great.  I like to combine a good melting cheese with a grating cheese.  Now I'm intrigued, does anyone have a recipe for kefalograviera?

[mikekchar]

solitary_kidney on Reddit is my normal goto for Greek style cheeses.  I hope they don't mind me copying and pasting their recipe here.  The recipe is taken from this thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/cheesemaking/comments/ot86rc/my_eight_graviera_wheels_seven_made_with_100/

One quick note: kefali apparently means "head" and it's prepended to cheese names in the same way we say "wheel of".  So kefalograviera basically means "wheel of graviera cheese".  Having said that, from a marketing perspective `kefalograviera` is apparently distinct from `graviera` cheese.  The former is a very recent thing (starting in the 1950's or 60's depending on who you ask) and is produced in a very small region of Greece.  Graviera cheese is made only with sheep's milk while kefalograviera may be made either with sheep's milk or a mix of sheep and goat's milk.

My understanding based on solitary_kidney's various discussions on the topic is that kefalograviera is essentially a Greek style tomme/alpine cheese.  Kefalotyri is a much harder and saltier cheese but still made in a similar fashion.   Here is an article that describes the content of the PDO description (including production information) of graviera: https://ambrosiamagazine.com/graviera-pdo-the-big-greek-cheese/  You can get the actual PDO documentation online, but the English summary is usually inadequate/wrong and translating it from Greek is a PITA.

I'm still tweaking the recipe but basically it goes like this (amounts of cultures, CaCl₂ etc depend on the amount of milk you have):

    Pasteurise milk.

    Cool to cheesemaking temperature (currently going for 35°C / 95°F). That should be high enough to wake up the thermophilic culture a bit.

    Add CaCl₂.

    Add cultures. Certainly thermophilic (and bioprotective, for me), optionally propionic (currently using TCC-3, FRESH Q2 and PS-2, respectively, from CHR Hansen).

    Leave the cultures to hydrate for 10 ish minutes before stirring them in.

    Normally you'd leave the cultures to act for a suitable length of time, but my milk is always a little low in pH so I skip fermentation altogether. If your milk pH is high enough, you may also want to lower the cheesemaking temperature a bit, maybe to 32°C/ 89.6°F

    Add rennet. The amount should be enough for the milk to set (flocculate) at around 12-15 minutes and be ready to cut at 30-35 minutes. I use a liquid rennet from lambs' stomachs with lipase taken from the epiglotis of goats, but the lipase is not necessary, actually you probably want to avoid it for a milder, sweeter, more Alpine style cheese.

    When the curd is ready to cut, cut into small cubes about the size of six-sided dice (2cm / ~0.8 inches a side).

    Allow the curd to heal for 10 minutes.

    Cook the curd, stirring (not beating!) with an eggbeater or similar to cut it more finely. The final curd size should be about the size of rice or lentil grains. Be gentle, but be prepared to see a lot of fat released in the whey. I use two eggbeaters for this job, a plastic one with spare and softer but thicker tines, first, and a metallic one with more and finer tines afterwards, though I sometimes stick with the first one throughout, depending on how the stirring goes. The finer tines are needed when you can't get a fine enough cut with the thicker ones.

    Target pH after cooking: around 6,4.

    Average cooking time: 30 minutes. The actual time depends on the pH before cooking and should be enough to dry out the curds without overacidifying them. I leave some moisture in the curds, usually, resulting in a softer paste after aging. You can kind of tell the curds are ready by how they feel during stirring: they begin to feel harder as they flow around the tines of the eggbeater. Tricky to explain, sorry!

    The cooking temperature depends on the culture. I go for 40-42°C / 104-107.6°F but I've gone as high as 45°C / 113°F and as low as 38°C / 100.4°F. Depends on the pH of the curds before cooking - if it's too high, you want to cook to a lower temperature and for a longer time, but probably not below 38°C / 100.4°F.

    Allow another 10 minutes for the curds to heal and settle at the bottom of the pot.

    Drain the whey (I decant it into another pot to make myzithra/ ricotta). Leave enough to cover the curds, just.

    Knead the curds under the whey and gather them up in a tomme shape. I do this by turning the pot around and rolling the curds on the wall of the pot while I gather and press them.

    Flip the tomme over once and give it one good knead under the whey. This should make both sides smooth - ish. There'll be cracks usually. There will also be loose bits of curd in the whey - I gather those up with a (sanitised) hand strainer, or a small cheese form.

    Lift the tomme off the whey with your hands (scaaaary!) and put it in a form, lined with cheesecloth. Careful not to break the tomme at the edge of the form. If the tomme deforms, press it gently to mold it in the shape of the form. If you overpress it you'll see white, fatty, milky whey leaking out.

    Turn four times at 15 minutes, twice at 30, then once every 1, 2, 3, 4 and 8 hours. I usually time things so that I wake up in the middle of the night to do the first 4-hour turn. You may want to skip that step

    I generally don't press those cheeses, or press them with a tiny amount of weight- 1.5 lites of old whey or such. I've pressed a few a bit more, up to 7.5 litres, and it does make a difference, but it's not absolutely necessary. It's up to you. Anyway in this kind of cheese, the rind closes easily under the curd's own weight.

    After that, turn once or twice a day.

    To salt, make a brine with the amount of salt you want the final cheese to have. You'll probably not know your exact yield, but you can estimate it from the weight of the cheese after it's been draining for a couple of days. After that mine usually lose about a fifth of their mass in moisture. Your mileage may vary.

    Once you have your brine, soak a brush in it and brush the top and sides of the cheese after you've flipped it. Wait until the cheese is somewhat dry, first, perhaps three or four days.

    Alternatively, brine the cheese (up to you how strong you want the brine to be). You should probably know how to do this better than me. The brushing method is traditionally used in alpine cheeses and is supposed to help develop the rind.

Edit: I should say the salting instructions with the brush, are purely speculative- I haven't tried that yet. I'm about to try it out in my latest cheese. So you probably want to stick with brining, or dry salting, whichever you do normally.

[Kefalograviera]

Thanks for all the informative replies. You've given me a lot to chew on. Pun intended.  :-)