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Comment by sircastor | Hacker News Reader

I made bagels a few weeks ago and for the first time tried to make cream cheese to go with it. The product was definitely a cheese, but had a much sourer taste than what I prefer, and a much thicker consistency.

I used lemon juice as an acid because I had it on hand rather than vinegar which I think is the preferred acid agent. Anyone done this successfully before?

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if you put milk in a pot, heated and added lemon until it separated sounds like you made ricotta, not cream cheese.

Cream cheese is more like yogurt actually (I'm sure I've had some brands that where really just yoghurt with very low water percentage). Maybe the culture they use is different, but I've left homemade greek yogurt straining in the fridge and forgot about it for an extra day and it came out exactly like cream cheese.

I understand that cottage cheese, cream cheese, and ricotta are all quite similar, and much of it has to do with how you handle removing the whey, or what you do with the curds afterwards.

cottage cheese and ricotta, yes, note the clumpy texture. That's what you get when you heat enough and cook the milk with an acid, it clumps into that typical texture.

But cream cheese is more like yogurt. You put the culture in the milk, add some sugar to feed it, heat it until barely warm and store until it thickens and can be separated from the whey by straining. The process is similar for both, just not sure if they use different cultures.

Thanks for mentioning this - the instructions that I'd found for making cream cheese had suggested essentially making ricotta, and running it through a food processor until creamy. While this did produce some sort of cheese, it wasn't what I was looking for. I did more research and just as you said, Cream cheese starts with a yogurt, drains the whey off and then is pressed. Some approaches combine yogurt (made with Milk) and sour cream. Anyway, it's obviously a complex and broad topic. You've gotten me pointed in the right(er) direction.

>if you put milk in a pot, heated and added lemon until it separated sounds like you made ricotta, not cream cheese.

Interesting. That is basically how paneer is made. Then you strain off the whey after the milk "splits", and hang the paneer up to drain, wrapped in a porous cloth, for a few hours.

Then you can eat it straight away, either raw (delicious that way too), or deep-fried alone, or in some recipe for a dish having paneer as an ingredient. The raw paneer lasts for a few days in the fridge.

The whey can be drunk as is, or used instead of or in addition to water for cooking.

Correct that is (unpressed) paneer, not ricotta - the latter should be the acid-split curds from the whey left from a rennet-set cheese; the result is much creamier (and of course much much lower yield).

Right, thanks, I forgot to mention the need to press the paneer for a while, if you want to make cubes for cooking.

That is both for giving it shape and firmness, and removing more of the whey, after which it will fry or cook better without falling apart.

Oh I wasn't meaning to correct you - you mentioned draining, and I know some people don't press it any more than under its own weight like that. (I do prefer it a bit firmer personally though - just not as far as the stuff we get in shops in the UK, which is like rubber.)

I just meant that up-thread cheese sounds like paneer because it is (on its way to being), ricotta is/should be slightly different.

Got it now. And yes, rubbery paneer is not good.

Hmm is this the paneer from "palak paneer" the delicious Indian desert? :-)

Yes, it is the same paneer (a kind of Indian soft unaged cheese) that is used in palak paneer (a spinach + paneer dish with spices and masalas), which I agree is delicious when made well.

It's like a comfort food because you feel good after eating it, for some reason, not sure why.

But it is a main dish, not a desert :) It is eaten with either chapatis or rotis or naans or rice, mostly.

Not sure how you thought it was that, since it is not sweet, rather it is savory.

It is a dish from Punjabi or North Indian cuisine, whic is one of my favorite cuisines. I like many other regional Indian cuisines too, as well as some from other countries. Unfortunately in Indian restaurants, you don't get many options of ethnic, regional Indian foods, although that is slowly changing, but then again, some of it is the chi-chi and overpriced kind.

My apologies, I was thinking of gulab jamun! Totally different dish, I spaced out on recalling the name.

No problem, it happens to us all :)

BTW (and I made the mistake below too), no Indian or other desert is even remotely delicious :)

They are all dry, and mostly hot, though some are cold.

Now desserts, on the other hand ...

Ricotta is properly made from the whey which is a by-product of making another cheese. Additionally, the souring comes not from lemon, but from fermentation of the whey itself. However, it's true that the term is commonly used in home cooking for plain fresh cheeses made from whole milk.

Your strained Greek yogurt sounds similar to labneh, which is delicious!

I've always used vinegar when making yogurt and cream cheese (it's also a lot cheaper than lemon juice) as I don't want to impact flavour at that stage.

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