By Jane-Anne Hobbs From Scrumptious South Africa

I’ve had a lovely response to my recipe for drained maas [amasi] cheese – thank you for the emails and messages!  I’m so excited by this method for making gorgeous soft white cheese at home that I’ve made three more batches this week, experimenting with a variety of flavours. Here is my current favourite: a ‘salami’ of cheese with lemon zest and white pepper, rolled in cracked black pepper & smoked paprika.

PHOTO: Drained Maas Cheese flavoured with lemon and pepper.

Plate by Master Potter of Franschhoek David Walters.

This cheese is so inexpensive to make at home – the two-litre bottle of full-cream maas it takes to make two of these will set you back around R20. A huge saving, considering that a single, smaller (100g) ‘salami’ of this sort costs between R19 and R23 at upmarket stores.

I am smitten by white pepper, so tend to use it with abandon, but as it has a strong, rather ‘dusty’ flavour, I suggest you add it to the cheese in pinches, tasting as you go.

PHOTO:This home-made cheese is also good with sweet chilli jam (see Cook’s Notes).

Another wonderful flavouring for this cheese is horseradish (see my Cook’s Notes at the end of this blog post).

Drained Maas Cheese Roll with Lemon, Pepper & Smoked Paprika

a drained maas cheese, made from 1 litre of full-cream maas

the finely grated zest of half a lemon

½ tsp (2.5 ml) white pepper

salt, to taste

freshly milled black pepper

1 tsp (5 ml) good smoked paprika

To serve:

fresh radishes, or crunchy accompaniments of your choice

Salticrax or similar salted crackers, to serve

Tip the cheese into a bowl. Add the lemon zest, pepper and salt, to taste, and knead well with your fingertips. It’s quite a sticky cheese, so you might want to use a sturdy spoon instead.

PHOTO: Roll the cheese into a tight salami shape.

Form the cheese into a ball and then roll it into a neat salami shape between the palms of your hands. Place a piece of clingfilm or baking paper on the counter and grind over it plenty of black pepper. Gently roll the cheese back and forth so it is coated all over. Now dip the two ends in the pepper. Repeat the process using the smoked paprika.

Place the cheese on one end of a new length of clingfilm and roll it up, as if you are making a Christmas cracker.  Grasp the two ends of the ‘cracker’ and continue roll the cheese away from you to form a neat, tight cylinder. Twist the two ends together (see picture above), and refrigerate for 4-5 hours, or until firm.

Unroll the cheese, slice it into discs (see Cook’s Notes) and serve with crackers and radishes.

Makes one cheese; serves 4 as a snack, with accompaniments.

Cook’s Notes

The best way to slice this cheese is with a length of unscented dental floss or similar thin, strong thread.

If you’re not in South Africa, you can make this with yoghurt, using this recipe.

This is also good with sweet chilli sauce, tomato jam, wine jelly, quince jelly, and so on.

Try using the maas cheese in my recipe for Smoked Venison with Horseradish & White Pepper. You can serve this pressed into a mould, or formed into dear little ‘lollipops’ (photo.)

PHOTO: Smoked Venison with Horseradish & White-Pepper Cream Cheese, served two ways.

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