Nut cheese? Yes of course! And it’s delicious and healthy : )
This one is made with macadamia nuts, probiotics and some herbs.
1) Soak the nuts for a couple of hours until they get a bit swallen and soft
2) Rinse and change the water, then put the nuts in a blender and add water, (slowly!) and blend until you get a paste, should be a bit liquid but not too much, like a cream.
3) Add the probiotics, for 2 cups of nuts I put normally one or two capsules or one sachet or half a teaspoon, make you experiments because it depends on so many things like the quality of the probiotics etc.
4) Blend a bit more to mix, not too much
5) Transfer the cream obtained in a cheesecloth and hang it on a strainer or in a jar to let the excess water drop down and allow the fermentation process
6) In the hot climate, like tropics, 12 hours could be enough, in temperate climate you may want to let the fermentation going on for 24 hours or more
7) Transfer the paste (now it should definitely be more like a paste than a cream) in a bowl and add pink salt or seasalt to the taste, you can also add some herbs like tyme, coriander, cayenne pepper, basil etc. and lime or lemon juice now. I suggest to make different small batches to have different tastes, specially in the beginning.
8) Put the cheese in a small tupperware, depending on the type of nuts, the cheese will take some days to get harder, macadamia for example is quicker than cashews. I like to keep the cheesecloth inside so it become easy to take it out and check “the brick”. I know … the bigger problem is you will eat it all, more and more every time you check it out eheheh : )
9) Let it rest in the fridge and after 2 or 3 days you should get a firm texture.
10) If you want the rind, like the one in the picture, once the cheese is firm, you can dehydrate it for some hours
In the pics the macadamia cheese with rind. (sorry for the pics are a bit dark)
Macadamia cheese on a flax “pizza” cracker with lime, cucumber and cilantro, yummy!