I found an "egg cheese" recipe that is basically as follows:
- Mix 3 eggs, 300g sour cream, and 1.5 tsp salt
- Bring 2 liters whole milk to a boil
- When milk has reached boiling, add the eggs/sour cream mixture
- Cook on low for 10 mins
- Gather the curds, press overnight
I wanted to try a variant on this recipe with a different acid (wondering how different the cheese would taste), so I used this variant recipe:
- Bring 2 liters whole milk to a boil
- When milk has reached boiling, add 1.5 tsp salt and 60 ml lemon juice, and reduce the heat to low
- Add 3 beaten eggs to the milk
- Cook on low for 5 - 7 mins
- Gather the curds, press overnight
Crucially: the variant recipe said to add the lemon juice first, then the whisked eggs immediately after.
That resulted in disaster:
With the original recipe, when I added the egg/sour cream mixture, nothing especially noteworthy/wrong happened: the curds developed slowly, and I got a pleasant cheese.
But with the lemon juice variant recipe, when I added the lemon juice, curds forming nearly immediately and when I added the whisked eggs, they basically turned into scrambled eggs.
In retrospect, that result seems obvious, but oh well.
My questions are about the need/significance of eggs in this cheese-making recipe.
What purpose does the egg serve in this recipe? (I'm no cheesemaking expert, but I haven't heard of eggs being used in "famous" cheeses like cheddar, brie, etc.)
Why didn't the eggs scramble when they were mixed with sour cream before being added to the boiling milk?
Is there a way to introduce eggs properly into the lemon juice variant recipe? Or should eggs not be used at all in the lemon juice variant?
(I'd like to get to an understanding of when and why eggs are okay or not okay in this "kind" of recipe: essentially when they are introduced into a hot liquid)