Cooking Chevre cheese, energy value and chemical composition. Benefits and harms when consumed. What dishes can you cook, interesting facts.
Chevre is a French cheese made from goat's milk. No additions to the feedstock are allowed. The aroma is sharp, tantalizing, the texture is creamy, pasty, thickening with prolonged exposure; color - from white to snowy, with blueness; the taste can be both creamy, soft and delicate, and spicy piquant, nuts and a mixture of dried fruits are clearly felt; the crust is thin, light beige, wrinkled. The weight of the heads is from 150 to 300 g, but the exact shape by which the variety can be recognized is absent. Possible options: heart-shaped, tall or flattened cylinder, and even "sausage" or log. Often, during manufacture, white mold is introduced into the composition.
How is Chevre cheese made?
To prepare a 200 g head, you will need 4 liters of pasteurized raw material. It is recommended to pasteurize at a temperature of 60 ° C, heating the milk for 40 minutes and adding calcium chloride at this stage. When heated to 90 ° C, useful substances partially decompose.
How Chevre cheese is made:
- Cool to 27 ° C, pour the sourdough on the surface. The taste of the final product depends on the type of culture: mesophilic are more often used, but the introduction of thermophilic ones is also allowed. Allow the contents of the pan to "rest" for 2-3 minutes, stir with movements from top to bottom so that the starter culture is evenly distributed, and pour in liquid rennet.
- One of the secrets of making Chevre cheese is the curdling method. Abomasum is added very little and only because goat milk, even without a refrigerator, left in a warm place, sours for a very long time. The saucepan with the sourdough is tightly closed with a lid and left for 12 hours (sometimes for a day) in a warm place - for example, in an oven with a constant temperature of 22 ° C.
- Calle is checked for a "clean break" by lifting with a knife with a thin blade over the edge and cutting with force. The line should be thin and immediately filled with serum.
- The layer is cut into cheese grains with a face size of 1, 3 cm. Mix intensively, allow them to round, then leave for as long as it takes for everything to settle.
- To separate the whey, the curd mass is thrown onto cheesecloth folded in several layers, suspended for 5-7 hours.
How to cook Chevre cheese at home further depends on the taste of the cheese maker. You can form a head already at this stage - in the form of a cylinder or a ball, roll in coarse salt and leave to dry at room temperature on a drainage mat (turn over 3-4 times). You can eat in a day.
But if, after salting, add a little white mold to the surface and place it in the aging chamber for 2-4 weeks, you get an exquisite product with a delicate taste. True, the quality of the texture will change from creamy to crumbly, and the taste - from creamy to spicy, with sourness.
Some cheesemakers believe that the delicate taste can only be obtained with the help of wood ash. Before putting the heads to ripen, they are rubbed with ash. You can mix it with dried rosemary, juniper berries, mashed dill or caraway seeds.
Flavoring additives are used in the Shevra recipe not so much to modify the taste as to soften the aroma. After a short exposure, the characteristic "goat" smell is felt insignificantly, but after 2-3 weeks it becomes so perceptible that, without being a taster, it is difficult to put even a piece in your mouth. A white mold or odorless spicy coating is an effective solution to the problem of unpleasant odors.
Composition and calorie content of Chevre cheese
Fat content of the product relative to dry matter is 40-45%. Energy value varies depending on the degree of aging - the level of fat decreases and the level of carbohydrates increases.
The calorie content of Chevre cheese is 232-257 kcal per 100 g, of which:
- Protein - 12 g;
- Fat - 19.5 g;
- Carbohydrates - 1, 3 g.
The vitamin and mineral composition is dominated by: retinol, riboflavin, choline, pantothenic acid, cobalamin, vitamin PP, niacin, calcium, sodium, phosphorus, potassium, sulfur, manganese and iron.
Chevre cheese contains a high amount of essential amino acids (lysine and valine) and nonessential (proline and aspartic acid).
Despite the fact that there is a lot of cholesterol (14.77 mg per 100 g), there is no need to be afraid of weight gain. If you do not exceed the recommended daily dosage for fermented milk products of this type (60-80 g per day), the fat layer will not form. Due to the high content of monounsaturated fatty acids - with a predominance of palmitoleic and omega-9 (oleic) - metabolic processes are accelerated and the tone of blood vessels increases. The weight does not increase.
Chevre can be safely introduced into a cheese diet for weight loss. With its regular use, energy will be enough for physical activity and professional activity, and the reserve of nutrients will be constantly replenished. It is also very easy to return to your normal diet.
Useful properties of Chevre cheese
The popularity of the fermented milk product is explained not only by its interesting taste, but also by its beneficial effect on the human body.
In the diet of children, pregnant women and women during lactation, it is allowed to introduce subspecies of short-term aging, in the preparation of which white mold was not used.
Benefits of Chevre Cheese:
- The composition contains a large amount of probiotics, which prevents the development of dysbiosis, improves digestion and accelerates peristalsis. The use of this fermented milk product stimulates the production of bile salts and digestive enzymes. Toxins are removed from the body in time, there are no prerequisites for the occurrence of putrefactive processes. The likelihood of bowel cancer is reduced.
- The calcium + phosphorus complex helps to strengthen the skeletal system, stimulates growth in children and stops osteoporosis in the elderly. Shevre is most useful for women entering premenopause - the frequency of migraine attacks and hot flashes decreases.
- Digestible protein stimulates the formation of muscle mass in athletes.
- Improves the condition of blood vessels, increases the tone of the walls, prevents atherosclerosis and reduces the possibility of coronary artery disease, lowers blood pressure.
- Thanks to vitamin D, the development of rickets in children is suppressed, the quality of epithelial tissues is restored and the ability to regenerate increases.
- It has an antioxidant effect, accelerates the restoration of joints and muscle fibers after damage, and normalizes cirrhosis.
- Helps to cope with anemia, increases hemoglobin levels.
In addition, Chevre goat cheese can be introduced into the diet of patients recovering from serious illnesses, including those who cannot tolerate cow's milk protein.
Read more about the health benefits of Gloucester cheese
Contraindications and harm to Chevre cheese
There are no restrictions on the use of young Shevra subspecies for food, except for individual intolerance. But mature cheese, in the manufacture of which white mold was used, can provoke dysbiosis in children under 5 years of age, the elderly, pregnant women and patients taking antibiotics, antidepressants or hormones. You should not use such a product during lactation - everything that the mother eats goes into the stomachs of babies.
Long-term Chevre cheese can cause harm in chronic pancreatitis, gastroduodenitis and a tendency to enterocolitis. Use should be discarded in case of kidney disease, frequent hypertensive attacks, and gout. The last recommendation applies to both young and mature subspecies of the variety - too much salt in the composition.
Another limitation for women who introduce a fermented milk product into their diet for weight loss. The duration of such a diet is 3 days, no more. To neutralize the effect of salt, it is necessary to significantly expand the drinking regime. If you get carried away, you can provoke a violation of urinary function and the formation of edema.
Chevre Cheese Recipes
There are no canons for the use of the variety. It can be served with nuts, honey and any kind of fruit, and can be used to prepare hot and cold dishes. The only recommendation is not to drink beer. But if you really want to, then the indication can be neglected.
Chevre Cheese Recipes:
- Rolls … Peel the hard sour green apple and remove the middle. The half is cut into very small pieces. Chop 2 lush sprigs of dill and a few feathers of green onions. Using a fork, 250 g of young Shevra are turned into a homogeneous mass, everything is mixed, adding a little cane sugar and pepper. Fillets of smoked salmon are cut into not very thin plates so that they do not break in the future. Spread out on cling film. Grease the top with a thick layer of cheese paste, roll it up and put it in the refrigerator for 1 hour. Remove the film, cut into rolls 4 cm wide. Serve with soy sauce.
- Donuts … The recipe is complex, and without culinary skills, the dish cannot be prepared. Dilute milk powder to make 750 ml (you can use ordinary skim milk). Heat to a boil, dissolve the chopped young goat cheese, remove for 4 hours on the refrigerator shelf to thicken everything. Beat separately 9 egg yolks with 180-200 g of sugar until the mixture turns white, add 2 tbsp. l. corn and wheat flour. Form cakes from the milk-cheese mixture, lay eggs whipped with flour inside, roll into a ball and put it back in the refrigerator so that the form solidifies. While the donut filling is cooling, knead the batter - warm water, a little quick yeast, sugar, salt, flour. Allow 4 hours to ferment, crumple, allow to rise again. Mix separately apricot jam, a little strong coffee and lime juice to remove sugary. Simultaneously boil deep-fat oil and heat the oven to 180 ° C. The frozen ball is pricked onto a long wooden knitting needle (previously soaked in water), dipped in the dough so that it clings to it on all sides, dipped for 45 seconds in boiling deep fat, then in a sweet mixture for impregnation and placed in the oven for 1 minute. This is how every donut is prepared. Sprinkle with icing sugar, serve with a knitting needle.
- Summer salad … For refueling, mix 1 tbsp. l. sweet orange juice, 1 tsp. lemon juice and 2 tbsp. l. olive oil. In a salad bowl, orange fillets are combined, removing partitions and seeds (2 fruits), halves of 12 pitted cherries, arugula, disassembled into leaves (as many leaves as fit in a handful), fried pine nut kernels - the same amount.
See also recipes for dishes with Turosh cheese.
Interesting facts about Chevre cheese
The history of fermented milk products from goat milk began in ancient Greece, but the French began to prepare varieties from this raw material thanks to the invasions of the Saracens (1st-2nd centuries). Bands of robbers accompanied herds of goats. Animals do not require too careful care and are almost omnivorous (grass, hay, branch feed). Retreating, the Saracens left the goats. And since they significantly impoverished the pastures, the cows did not have enough feed, and the peasants had to use goat's milk.
It is known that the first to use such raw materials were the inhabitants of the Atlantic coast of the country, who live where the departments of Cher, Loire and Indre are now located. But such cheeses won general recognition only in the VIII century, at this time they began to improve the recipe.
Goat's milk chevre is still considered a farm product, and 85% of the heads offered to the consumer are young cheese made without the introduction of mold crops. But large cheese dairies, which relatively recently began to make this variety, prefer long ripening.
The first version of this cheese is Buche-de-Chevre, produced in the form of a log. The latter, considered to be the most exquisite, is Coeur-de-Chevre with the literal translation “heart of a goat”. The shape of the heads is the heart in the form in which the lovers depict it.
Gourmets give preference to Chevre with white mold, washed down with red or white fortified wine. But it is impossible to get acquainted with the original product outside of France - the variety is not certified, and it is not exported.
Consumers can taste cheese from Belarus, made according to the classic recipe without the use of mold and tastes like a young Chevre. The difference from the original is the packaging in parchment. The crust on the surface does not have time to form.
Watch the video about Chevre cheese:
