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Curd
The most usual way to "turn" milk, as it is called, that is, to make it curdle, is to mix it, when warm, but not hot, with a little rennet, and let it stand in a warm place until the curd is solid and the whey clear. Essence of rennet can be obtained at any of the stores at prices varying from 4d. to 1s. per bottle. A little lump of alum put into cold milk and set on the fire will turn milk, or a few well-beaten eggs stirred in just as the milk is boiling. A pinch of salt added after the milk curdles will assist the whey to separate. Whey is by some considered a wholesome drink for feverish persons, and in country places the lasses often wash in it to improve their complexions.
This is a method entry rather than a dish: three ways to separate milk into curd and whey, written for a household that made its own cheese, junket and curd tarts. The technique still works, with a few adjustments.
- "Warm, but not hot"Rennet works best at blood heat, about 98-100F (37-38C), and is destroyed above roughly 140F (60C). Heat the milk to blood heat, stir the rennet in, then stop stirring entirely — movement breaks the setting gel and you get grainy curd instead of a clean break.
- Essence of rennetThe 4d. to 1s. bottles were liquid animal rennet sold for junket. Modern liquid rennet is far more concentrated: a few drops per litre is usual, so follow the bottle rather than the old "a little". Vegetarian microbial rennet and tablet rennet both work; tablets should be crushed and dissolved in cool unchlorinated water first.
- Skip the alumAlum does precipitate milk protein, and it was a legitimate pantry chemical in the period, but it is astringent, gives an unpleasant metallic taste, and in any quantity is a gastric irritant. The recipe gives no measure at all — "a little lump" could be a gram or ten. There is no reason to use it when rennet or acid will do the same job better.
- The egg methodBeaten eggs stirred into milk at the boil give a soft, custardy curd rather than a cheese curd — the egg protein is doing the setting. Useful for a curd tart filling, useless if you want something to press or drain firm.
- Acid as a fourth optionLemon juice or white vinegar, about 1-2 tablespoons per litre of milk brought to just under boiling, curdles it reliably and is what most modern fresh-cheese recipes use. Acid curd is the ricotta/paneer style: crumbly, mildly tart, not stretchy.
- Ultra-pasteurised milk will not setUHT and ultra-pasteurised milk have been heated hard enough to denature the whey proteins and disrupt the casein, and rennet will not give a clean curd from it. Use ordinary pasteurised whole milk, and add a pinch of calcium chloride if the set is weak.
- The salt and the drainingThe pinch of salt after curdling helps the curd contract and expel whey, as the original says. To carry it further, ladle the curd into a cloth-lined sieve and let it drain 20-60 minutes depending on how dry you want it. Rough handling at this stage squeezes out fat and toughens the result.
- YieldA litre of whole milk gives roughly 150-200g of drained fresh curd and about 800ml of whey.
- The wheyFresh whey is fine to drink or to use in bread dough and scones, but it sours quickly — refrigerate and use within a couple of days. The complexion-washing is folklore, not advice.
Curd-making sat at the very bottom of the dairy household's skill set: it is the first step towards cheese, junket, curd tarts and cheesecakes. Rennet — an extract of the fourth stomach of an unweaned calf, containing the enzyme chymosin — had been used to set milk since antiquity, and by the late nineteenth century bottled "essence of rennet" was sold by grocers alongside the older farm practice of steeping a dried piece of calf's vell in brine. The prices quoted, fourpence to a shilling, place this firmly in the pre-decimal British market. The closing remarks are period commonplaces rather than the compiler's own claims: whey had a long standing as a cooling drink for invalids in the humoral tradition, and washing in it for the complexion is a piece of rural folklore that appears in English writing well before this book, often said to be the origin of the milkmaid's fair skin.