Cottage Cheese

My lovely family gave me a cheese making kit for my birthday (way back in February). I have finally got round to using it.
The first and simplest thing to make is cottage cheese. The plan is to progress to more complicated things step at a time.

We made cottage cheese before just using acide (lemon juice) in the milk and heating it, but this method with rennet is more efficient and gets more of the milk solids out in to the cheese. It also results in bigger 'lumps' in the cheese.

Ingredients
1 liter of milk (not homogonised, full fat or skimmed is good)
1/4 tsp rennet (mine came from http://www.homesteadfarmsupplies.co.uk/)
6ml cheese starter (mine came from http://www.homesteadfarmsupplies.co.uk/ and had to be prepared 24 hours ahead of starting to make the cheese - what wasn't used was frozen in an ice cube tray)
A little bit of double cream (makes the final product creamier - not required)

Make the curd
Heat the milk to 21C. A thermometer that clips to the edge of the pan is useful.

Add the starter and rennet and stir thoroughly
Leave for several hours until the curd has formed. There are various ways to test this. I did it by sticking a knife in and if it comes out clean rather than milky then it is ready and also stick the knife down the side of the pan, if you can pull the whole contents away from the side then it is ready.

Cut the curd
With a long knife slice the contents of the pan from side to side in to slices about 1cm across. Then turn the pan through 90 degrees and repeat. You not have long columns of curd. Recut each line with the knife at a 45 degree angle to slice the columns in to chunks.
You can see the greenish whey coming out of the curds.

Cook the curd in the whey
Turn the heat back on and heat slowly to 45C stirring gently all the time. More whey comes out of the curds

Separate curds and whey
Use a sieve or put a cheese cloth in a colander
Save the whey for later use (use in making bread or soup instead of water - or drink it)
Dump the curds in to a bowl of cold water and then strain through the seive/cloth again

The whey

Finally
Add approx 1 tsp of salt (or less to taste), stir well and add the cream if using.
Eat! We have had in salad and with honey. Both yummy.