Myzithra

What is Myzithra Cheese?

Mizithra, also spelled myzithra, is a Greek whey cheese or mixed milk-whey cheese made from sheep's milk, goat's milk, or both. The usual ratio is seven parts milk to three parts whey. Crete is the main production area, but the cheese is found all over Greece. It is essentially the same cheese as Anthotyros, which may also include some cow's milk. Cyprus has a close relative called Anari, known as Nor in Cypriot Turkish and Lor in Turkish.

Production starts with raw whole ewe's or goat's milk brought to a slow boil for a few minutes. The cheesemaker then curdles it with rennet, with whey saved from an earlier batch, or with something acidic such as lemon juice, vinegar, or even a freshly broken fig tree sprig. Once curds form, they go into a cheesecloth bag and hang to drain, and the whey that drips out can curdle the next batch.

After a few days the cheese sets into a soft, moist mass that takes the shape of the bag, with a rounded bottom and a wrinkly conical top. It is snow-white and creamy. Because no salt goes in, the taste is milky and almost sweet. Mizithra that is salted and aged turns drier, denser, saltier, and more sour, and that version is called xynomizithra, meaning sour mizithra.

Fresh mizithra is eaten as a dessert with honey or served as a meze with olives and tomato. It works as a table cheese and goes into salads, pastries, and baking, especially small handful-size cheese pies and Sfakiani pita from the Sfakia region. The salted, aged form is the classic Greek grating cheese and is at its best sprinkled over hot pasta.