I hope this is the right forum for this question...
I've had Fried Cheese Curds a couple times - at a county fair in Wisconsin the first time, and at A&W restaurants since then - and now that I've ventured into cheesemaking I think I'd like to try making my own.
Does anyone know at exactly what stage I would remove the curds for frying? My gut feeling is that I'd wait for the clean break, then cut into cubes heat the whey/curds without stirring, to firm up the curd, and then simply drain the weight, and bread and fry the chunks of curd. Any thoughts on this?
I've never done this, but if I were to try, here is the approach I think I would take.
I would follow a stirred curd cheddar recipe. I would cut the curd into larger than normal cubes. say .75in on side.
I would then scald/cook and stir normally. Perhaps a bit more gentle stirring than normal with these curds to prevent any unnecessary breakup of the curds. I do think that its important to cook these curds normallly to encourage syneresis in the the curds. Why? well cheddar is already 42% moisture so I don't think encouraging a higher moisture content would be needed.
I'm not sure that watching the acid production will be as important with this cheese as it is designed for immediate consumption. This cheese will never be required to form a block of cheese. And as such:
The taste will never need to mature
The feel will never be critically judged
The texture will never form as they will never need to knit together
So, I think the key here would be curd size, (A bit larger than normal)
and firmness. (Expel the whey by cooking)
These are just my thoughts and may not reflect reality as I have never attempted this.
Ordinarily, the cheese curd you get commercially ("squeaky cheese") is from cheddar cheese manufacturing. It's the curd that exists right after milling. Meaning that you need to culture, rennet, cut, cook, cheddar, then mill and salt. It's basically the milled, salted pieces that you would usually press to get cheddar cheese.
You can follow any cheddar recipe to get the curd. For consistent curd size, you would need to mill or figure out a way to cut them uniformly.
Upon further review, Linuxboy has a good point. If you went with traditional cheddar and not a stirred curd like i sugested, you get complete controll over curd size as you have to mill them by hand.
The real question one might ask is how "tough" you want the curd. the longer you "cheddar" the tougher the curd will be.
Thanks for the info guys. I'm looking for a pretty firm curd, the texture has best been described as "like silly putty." I think I'll play around with some cheddar recipes and see what I come up with.
If you're set on cheddar curds, I highly recommend getting a pH meter. It will save you many ruined batches and inconsistent results. Cheddar especially is really difficult without exact measurements because the curd properties are affected by the pH at renneting (affects flocculation, time to firm break), stirring, draining whey, and of course length of cheddaring.
There are some really great posts on this forum about pH specifics of cheddar at each stage.
I had waaaay to many curds to fit in my press last night, so I put them in a zip lock bag in the fridge. This morning I remembered this thread though, so I decided to give it a try. I've never had them before so I just used my instincts as to what I know would taste good together. The whole post about it is here https://cheeseaday.blogspot.com/2009/04/fried-cheese-curd.html, (https://cheeseaday.blogspot.com/2009/04/fried-cheese-curd.html,) and here is one of the pics I took.
(http://www.awcart.com/images/cheese/IMG_1596.JPG)
Now that looks sooooooo good!
They were quite mild, you know how curd is right after it comes out. I think a better breading should be either spicier or smokier, with maybe some brisket rub or something. Regardless, made a great lunch :)
Anything with fried cornmeal can't be to bad!
Now you have me thinking of smoking some fried cheese curds! Cheese, cornmeal and a nice mild pecan/cherry smoke should be awsome!
WooHoo! Good job!