Shared by Moselle Tobias and Florence Cohen
Shared by Moselle Tobias and Florence Cohen
Syrian String Cheese
Yield: 3 cheese twistsTime: 1 hour
Syrian String Cheese
Yield: 3 cheese twistsTime: 1 hourFamily Journey
Aleppo, SyriaBrooklyn, NY
Deal, NJ
In the 1930’s, looking for a place to live more comfortably as a Jewish family, Moselle Tobias’s grandmother moved over 7,500 miles from Aleppo, Syria to Mexico City. “A lot of Aleppo-born Jews at that time were moving to Mexico,” Moselle explains.
Her mother Celia left for New York as a teenager to join the city’s Sephardic community and to marry. Moselle grew up with her mother's Syrian cooking including sambusak, kibbeh, and anise crackers called ka’ak and Syrian string cheese.
The recipe, however, was nearly lost. Moselle would buy the cheese until she decided to start making everything in her home from scratch. She asked her sister-in-law to remind her how to make it. Moselle mastered the recipe and ultimately taught a class on how to make the cheese with her granddaughter Florence Cohen helping out.
Once Florence got the hang of making the cheese, she started to make it at home, selling it to neighbors. “I realized no one else in the family does it, only my grandma,” Florence explains. Today, she sells it to stores in her community under the label Grandma's Cheese.
Make ahead: Store the cheese twists in an airtight container a refrigerator for up to one week or in a freezer for up to 3 months.
Read more about their family in "From Grandmother to Granddaughter: A Syrian String Cheese Recipe Is Passed Down" and try their recipe for ka'ak (anise-laced crackers).
Ingredients
- 3 pounds mozzarella cheese curd, chopped into ½ inch cubes
- ¾ teaspoon nigella seeds, divided
- 3¾ teaspoons kosher salt, divided
Preparation
Step 1
Set aside a large bowl with an ice bath and one sheet pan.
Step 2
Make the cheese: Place a non-stick pan over medium-low heat. Place 1 pound of cheese curd into the pan and sprinkle ¼ teaspoon nigella seed and 1 ¼ teaspoons kosher salt into the pan. Using 2 heatproof spatulas, stir and knead the cheese curd in the pan as the cheese melts and separates from the liquid whey. Knead the cheese until all the cubes have melted and formed one smooth piece of cheese.
Step 3
Quickly transfer the hot piece of cheese onto a sheet pan using spatulas. Wear kitchen gloves to protect your hands from the heat. Working swiftly, use your fingers to create a hole in the center of the cheese and begin stretching it into a ring. Twist the ring to form two loops, then stack the loops on top of each other to make one loop again. Stretch the loop as far as you can, then twist it again into two loops and overlap them into one thicker loop. Repeat this stretch-and-twist process 6–8 more times. For the final twist, twist the curd in opposite directions (as if wringing out a towel) until tight. Insert one end of the loop into the other to form a finished cheese twist. Immediately place the cheese twist into an ice water bowl. Repeat the melting and shaping process with the remaining cheese curds, working with 1 pound at a time. Chill the twists in the ice bath for 45–60 minutes, then drain well before serving or storing.
Step 4
Untangle a cheese twist into one log of cheese. Starting from one end, pinch about 1-inch from the cheese and pull it away creating a long string of cheese. Continue pinching and pulling the strings of cheese until you have your desired amount of cheese.
Step 5
Serve the cheese cold with ka’ak or vegetables. The cheese can be stored up to 1 week in an airtight container in the rerigerator.
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