Kalathaki Limnou

What is Kalathaki Limnou Cheese?

Kalathaki Limnou comes from Lemnos, an island in the northern Aegean. It has held protected designation of origin status since 1996. The name points to the molds: kalathakia means small basket in Greek, and limnou simply marks where the cheese is made. Both the milk and the animals must come from the island.

Because sheep's milk is seasonal, production runs only from January through June. Sheep's milk is the base, and goat's milk may be added up to 30 percent, though sheep's milk alone is considered to give the better cheese. Most of the production uses pasteurized milk, but raw milk versions exist. The milk is coagulated with rennet at about 33°C, then the curd is cut into bean-sized grains and drained. A second draining happens inside the small woven molds that shape the cheese and print its surface. Rush molds were used historically; plastic ones are more common now. The cheeses then go into brine to ripen, first for three weeks at around 15°C, then for at least two months at 6°C.

The finished cheeses are small cylinders, 10 to 15 cm across and 8 to 9 cm tall, weighing between 700 g and 1 kg. They are white, soft and rindless, and they stay in brine the way feta does. The taste is salty with a slight tang. The pH sits near 4.5, fat content is around 25 percent and salt around 2.4 percent.