Traditional Kazakh cottage or curd cheese, often from sheep's, mare's or camel's milk, with a soft texture and slightly sweet tangy flavour. Can be dried into a hard form for travel.
Irimshik is a traditional Kazakh cheese made from the milk of steppe livestock (sheep, goat, mare, camel or cow), with a soft texture and a slightly sweet, tangy flavour. The milk is curdled and then boiled down: the fresh white form (ak irimshik) is soft and keeps only a few days, while the red form (kyzyl irimshik) is boiled longer until it turns a caramel colour and is dried for travel and winter storage — sweet even without added sugar. It is a distinctly Kazakh cheesemaking tradition using the milk of the nomadic herds, and unlike the qurt eaten across Central Asia it is largely particular to Kazakhstan.
Soft, fresh and faintly tangy when young, with a creamy, slightly crumbly texture; or hard, dense and sweet when dried. Eaten as a snack or with tea, it is mild, dairy-forward and the cheese of the steppe.
The milk (sheep, mare, camel or cow) is gently warmed and curdled, either with rennet or by the natural souring of the milk. The curds are strained, pressed, and either eaten fresh (soft irimshik) or dried. The dried sweet variant adds sugar before pressing and drying. The type of milk gives a distinct flavour: mare's is sweeter, sheep's is richer, camel's is saltier. The natural souring method (no rennet) is the most ancient Kazakh technique.
Variations
A dried sweet version adds sugar. Some smoke the dried cheese.
On the Palate
Where Irimshik sits in the Kazakh flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 10How it's made
6 steps · 40 min
- 18 min
Warm 3 litres sheep's (or cow's) milk to 35C; stir in 1 tsp rennet (or 200ml soured milk as starter).
- 28 min
Rest undisturbed 1 hour until set; cut the curd into cubes.
Watch outLet the curd set firm before cutting — cut a loose, watery set and the solids slip away and the yield collapses.
- 310 min
Gently reheat to 45C over 20 minutes; ladle into a cheesecloth-lined mould.
- 48 min
Press with a weight 3 hours; drain.
Watch outPress under a weight to drive the whey out — under-pressed and the fresh cheese stays wet and won't firm up.
- 54 min
For fresh irimshik: salt lightly; eat within days.
- 64 min
For dried: salt, press again, and sun-dry 3-5 days until hard.
