Growing up in the Midwest I thought deep fried cheese was a gooey, delicious treat everyone has tasted. Or at the very least, knows about.
It wasn’t until I moved to New England two years ago that I realized how naive I was. Not only had my new friends and neighbors never tasted a deep fried cheese curd, they didn’t even know about regular cheese curds.
Put simply, a cheese curd is a bite-sized piece of cheese, typically a cheddar, that when fresh, squeaks in your mouth as you eat it. (The Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board tells me that the squeak is caused by elastic protein strands in cheese curds rubbing against the enamel of my teeth.)
I am reminded of my fried-food naivete every spring as I scan the food vendors at street fairs and find no one selling deep fried cheese curd. It’s not just the artery-clogging but oh-so-delicious fried variety that are a struggle to find either.
Fresh cheese curds are hard to come by in Massachusetts and even harder to describe. Cheeses like cheddar start as curds before being formed into blocks or wheels and aged. Wikipedia uses the term “curdled milk” to describe them which is rather unappealing.
This year, I was determined to get in my fix before returning home to Minnesota at the end of August. Since moving away, I’ve timed my trips home to align with the Minnesota State Fair so I can get my deep fried cheese curds while witnessing a live animal birth, appreciating works of art made entirely of seeds or watching a beauty queen have a bust of her likeness carved in a 90-pound block of butter.
As the annual listing of new foods coming to “The Great Minnesota Get-Together” was released in June, I was even more determined to get my hands on some deep fried cheese curds.
Finding the squeaky cheese would be hard, but I knew that unless I made them myself, I wouldn’t be indulging in the deep fried variety.
While walking the Northampton Farmer’s Market on a sunny Saturday, though, something caught my eye at Mayval Farm Creamery’s booth. CHEESE CURDS. I stopped, interested in learning more and already imaging my deep-fried dream becoming a reality.
I started chatting with Margaret “Margie” Parsons and asked her if she had ever heard about deep fried cheese curds. Not only had she tried them at the Big E in West Springfield, she even tried making them a few times.
“We would love to demonstrate them at the market,” Parsons said last week. But doing that would mean acquiring a costly fire suppression unit required by state law. So that has put a damper on those hopes for the time being.
But the unfried curds are a big hit at the markets the farm attends. Parsons said it takes a full day to make them and they are selling as many as the can produce — about 42 pounds a week.
The daylong process to make the cheese curds begins around 5 a.m. with pasteurizing the milk in a large vat. After the milk cools, the cultures are added. About 30 minutes later, Parsons adds the vegetarian rennet. After cutting the cheese into sections, more than an hour of stirring begins to get it to the right temperature and pH.
Left unstirred, the cheese would form into a solid clump, according to Parsons.
After reaching all the right levels, whey is emptied from the vat and the cheese is cut into six pieces — which have also been cut in half like a hamburger bun — before being transferred to a large table. There the cheese stays for about two hours, getting flipped every 15 minutes.
The final step includes slicing and breaking the cheese into the small bite-sized pieces. It’s at this step Parsons adds the herb and spice mixes for the different varieties she makes.
Mayval Farm Creamery, located in Westhampton, has been around since the late 1700s but the farm only recently started making the curds and other dairy products like skyr, an Icelandic dairy product similar to yogurt, and fromage blanc, a creamy soft cheese. Adding the new products diversifies its offerings to help sustain the dairy. Mayval makes a few types of cheese curds like garlic, chives and Buffalo.
Weeks after our brief conversation at the market, I asked Parsons if she would show me the creamery and share her knowledge of deep fried cheese curd making. She agreed and so last week I went to the farm to get a taste of home.
Parsons warned me that she wasn’t an expert in deep fried cheese curd making, but watching her in action told a different story. She effortlessly mixed the ingredients together while maintaining conversation. Here is the recipe she used:
1 cup all-purpose flour
1½ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
2 eggs, beaten
½ cup milk or buttermilk
1 pound cheese curds
Vegetable oil for frying
Sift together dry ingredients and then stir in the eggs and milk until smooth. Coat the cheese curds with batter. Heat oil (whether in a large, heavy skillet or a deep fryer) to approximately 375 degrees. Fry coated cheese curds until golden brown. Drain on paper towels.
Parsons has a small deep fryer so we used that for the recipe. Sharing a hard learned lesson from the first time she fried the curds, Parsons said the frying basket should be immersed in the hot oil first before adding the battered curds to avoid a big splattering mess.
We both agreed the batter could have used a little more liquid whether it be more milk or, if you’re feeling adventurous, beer.
We used three varieties of Mayval’s cheese curds — plain, chive and Buffalo — and all were delicious. The ones I get back home tend to be extremely salty which wasn’t an issue with Parsons’ curds. They are best eaten warm but I’d never say no to a cold deep fried cheese curd.
The small batch we made was enough to keep my cravings at bay until I return to Minnesota but it won’t stop my quest to find deep fried cheese curds for long.
I’m no fortune teller but I predict a trip to the Big E is in my future.
Happy frying!
Emily Cutts can be reached at ecutts@gazettenet.com.