I want to make Poutine, anyone know of a source for cheese curds?

[JVS]

Especially helpful would be if someone knew a store in the Pittsburgh area with cheese curds.

[meegbear]

1. Isn't that cottage cheese?

[JVS]

2. not really

Cottage cheese has curds, but it would make a poor poutine, too wet and the lumps are too small and not cheesy enough

[BigMcLargehuge]

3. make your own

all you need is whole milk, renet, salt, and cheese cloth. I think you can get renet at the supermarket still, if not look for a health food or natural food store. salt, milk, and cheese cloth are available everywhere.

pour about a half gallon of milk in a bowl, add renet and salt. Wait about ten minutes for the reaction to start, then hold the cheese cloth like a hammock and dip it in and out and in and out of the milk. The cloth will screen the curds and you can transfer them to another bowl.

[JVS]

5. What is renet?

This sounds like too much work. I think I'd rather just chop up a bunch of those string cheese sticks

[BigMcLargehuge]

6. it's the bacteria that makes cheese

it's like yeast, but for eating the lactose in milk rather than the sugar in gluten.

It's not that much work. The benefit is, you will have made your own cheese, and you will be able to make cheese whenever you want to make poutine.

Maybe I'm a traditionalist, but to me the journey to a good meal is as important as the meal itself.

[JVS]

7. In light of the $20/lb curds offered below, making it yourself gains favor

My main problem with DIY is that I believe that I'd probably fuck it up

[BigMcLargehuge]

10. all you have to do is mix and dip

it's like eating ice cream... honestly... it's so simple you could hire a really young neighborhood kid to do it for a quarter and not worry at all about it getting messed up.

[Cassandra]

11. Rennet

contains the enzyme that coagulates milk. It's usually from the lining of a calf's stomach but there are vegetarian ones, too. It's usually available in tablet form. Try here:
http://www.cheese.com/default.php?cPath=55_56

What's poutine?
BTW, don't cut up string cheese, it will be texturally weird. The Amish make cheese curds. Try an Amish source.

[BigMcLargehuge]

12. I tried and tried and tried to remember what Rennet was

and just couldn't remember Enzyme...

Thanks for the mental jump start!

:)

[Cassandra]

14. Some of us read the "Little House" books

as children, where she talks about all that stuff.

[BigMcLargehuge]

15. I used to make "quejo fresco" at a Portuguese deli

Mmmmmmm fresh cheeeeeeessssssssse.

[JVS]

13. Here is a link

http://www.members.shaw.ca/kcic1/poutine.html

[jpak]

16. What's poutine???? A French-Canadian dee-lite

Well not so "lite"

It's french fries and cheese curds smothered in gravy.

I used to make it by frying diced potatoes in HOT olive oil, draining them on paper towels, adding fresh curds and canned fat-free gravy.

C'est bon!

[benburch]

4. Mail order

http://www.marscheese.com/product.asp?sku=L2166&id=04091046669213417599951

[JVS]

8. whoa, expensive

[Whitacre D_WI]

9. Locking.

No sex threads.

[GumboYaYa]

17. Try this link:

http://shopdoorcounty.com/stores/renardscheese/

We get Cheese Curds at Renards fresh from that day's batch of cheese. If you can wait for an Internet order to arrive, I'm sure you can get curds at far cheaper than $20.00 per lb.

[JVS]

18. Thanks. I found curds, but do you know how much is in a package?

http://shopdoorcounty.com/stores/renardscheese/merchant.ihtml?pid=561&lastcatid=107&step=4

What price do you usually pay?

[GumboYaYa]

20. That is the same price we usually pay or right around there.

I think a package is about a pound of curds. It is a good amount of curds.

Archae lives a few miles from the Renards shop so he may be able to give you more details than me.

[Zookeeper]

19. Drop by Wisconsin or Minnesota...

Cheese curds are a regular grocery store item. Deep fried cheese curds from the State Fair....:9

Good luck! :hi:

[JVS]

21. kick

[JVS]

22. Kick for the evening folk, hopefully someone knows a good source