23/04/2024
Victoria Cruises' restaurants are staffed with the finest ingredients. Italian dishes are made using ingredients that come from small family farms and are of the highest quality. In our new series, we present you the products of our suppliers. In the first article you can read about the famous Parmesan cheese making.
We visited the SALICETO farm, where we buy Parmesan cheese for the VCL restaurants. SALICETO is a farm where they breed their own cows, whose milk is used to make the famous Parmigiano Reggiano cheese. The family business has been making Parmesan cheese for over 60 years. The milk comes to the factory from their own cows, and all processes are controlled to meet Parmesan production standards. One kilogram of cheese requires 10 liters of milk, and the plant produces only 10 Parmesan cheeses a day. Every day of the year.
Cheese making starts with milking the cows. The cows are milked twice a day: at dawn and in the evening. For cheese-making, the milk must not be transported below +18 °C, which is the starting temperature at the beginning of processing. The fat content of the milk is 32 %; Parmesan cheese cannot be made from milk with a fat content higher or lower than this.
At the beginning of processing, the milk is poured into giant conical copper vats and inoculated with rennet from the cows' stomachs to induce "coagulation" in the milk. The milk is broken down into curds and whey with the help of the rennet. The optimal temperature for this is +60°C, at which point casein, or milk protein, is precipitated. The milk temperature cannot be less or more. The milk is heated with steam to prevent it from burning in the vat during the production process. The milk is constantly stirred, the only process that is done with a modern mixing machine, all other processes in the cheese making process are done by traditional manual methods.
The curd is constantly checked by the cheese maker and when it reaches the right size he stops the heating and mixing, at which point the curd is lowered to the bottom of the vat and becomes a uniform mass. Such a "raw" cheese mass is about 100 kg per vat. Two cheeses are made from one cauldron. The Saliceto plant has five vats and produces 10 cheese discs per day.
When the cheese paste has rested, it is dipped into a cloth bag, shaped into a ball and cut in half. The two cheese bases are placed in a mould to allow the remaining whey to drip out. When this process is complete, the cheese begins to harden and is transferred to the final, classic cheese mould. Here it takes on the classic Parmigiano Reggiano shape and the stencils are placed on the sides as required. The cheese is then turned in salted water. Here the cheese is left to soak in the brine for 20 days and the rolls are turned every day. The cheese cannot sink in the brine and floats on the surface of the water.
After 20 days, the ageing process begins. Maturing lasts for a minimum of 24 months, because only then can we talk about Parmigiano Regiano DOC as a cheese of origin. This is a fundamental criterion for a cheese to be given the famous name. During the maturing process, the cheese is turned over daily and the noble mould is brushed off the outside.
The cheese goes from an initial weight of 50 kilograms to 38 kilograms at the end of the ripening process. The cheeses are matured for a maximum of 60 months. The original Parmigiano Reggiano cheese should not be kept in a refrigerator, but in a dry, cool place, and any mould on the surface should be brushed off and can be consumed for several years. The hard outer rind of the cheese, which is not usually eaten, should not be discarded either, as it is cooked into the traditional Minestrone soup, adding an intense base flavour to this fantastic soup.
Click on the link below to watch our short video of the Saliceto plant:
Author: VCL Team
23/04/2024
