This recipe takes a lot of patience. It might seem intimidating, but if you had to stop eating cheese for whatever reason, it will probably be worth it.
Ingredients:
1/2 quinoa (no, you won’t be eating this)
3 cups water
2 cups macadamia nuts
2 tsp nutritional yeast
2 tsp white miso paste
2 tsp salt
1 to 4 tbsp refined coconut oil (optional, yields a smoother texture)
In a 1L jar, soak 1/2 cup of quinoa in 1 cup of water overnight. The next day, drain most of the water from the jar, cover the top of the jar with a cloth tied with a string, then let the quinoa sit for out for 1-3 days, or until you see little sprouts. Once you see some sprouts, give the quinoa a quick rinse, then add it back to the jar along with 2 cups of water and leave to sit for 1-2 days, or until it smells fermented. Strain the water from the quinoa, discard the quinoa (or use it to feed chickens), and store the liquid (called rejuvelac) in a jar until ready to use.
Soak 2 cups of macadamia nuts (or other nuts) in water overnight. The next day, add the soaked macadamia nuts to a food processor along with about 1/4 cup of the rejuvelac (you can drink leftover rejuvelac or use it for other fermented foods) and blend until smooth. Add this mixture to a bowl, cover the bowl with a towel, and tie the towel down with a string. Leave this mixture on your counter to ferment for 1-3 days. A yellowish crust will form on the top, this is ok.
After the mixture has fermented for a few days, give it a good mix, making sure the “crust” gets well mixed in, then add 2 teaspoons of nutritional yeast, 2 teaspoons white miso paste, and 1 teaspoon salt (and the coconut oil, if you want) and mix well again. Shape this mixture into the shape you want your final “cheese” to be, rub some salt on the sides, add the shaped “cheese” into a cheesecloth, set it on a rack to dry, and then wait. You can wait for 3 days, you can wait for 28 days, or maybe even longer. I haven’t gone past a week because I can’t wait that long to eat it. In general, the longer you age this, the stronger the flavour and the harder the texture will become.
This “cheese” tastes good with bread and butter, it goes well in salads, and it would probably taste good in sauces too, though it doesn’t melt well.
Aged 1 week
My current batch, aged 2 days, cut in half 1 day ago, and hoping to age for another week.
Why bother?