Dairy Processing: The Soft Spreadable Cheese Xygalo Siteias

Abstract

The aim of cheese manufacturers is to produce high quality and safe products. Along the food chain of “milk to cheese and food products”, milk is collected, transferred, and managed in a standardized manner; processing results in safe, ready-to-eat products, of high nutritional quality. Soft, acid cheeses are prepared in various regions of Greece, mainly from ewe milk, goat milk, or their mixtures. They are produced from the rennet and/or acid coagulation of thermally-treated, full-fat milk undergoing acidification/curdling and ripening. Xygalo Siteias is a Greek soft cheese, produced in the area of Siteia, Crete, where it was recognized as PDO in 2011. It is close—more in texture and less in taste—with other cream cheeses PDO of Greece, such as Pichtogalo of Chania, and Katiki Domokou, still it differs in the preparation technique as well as in its physicochemical, biochemical, microbiological, and organoleptic characteristics. In this review, we focus on the processing and characteristics of Xygalo Siteias, mentioning perspectives for the further microbiological characterization of the product, the determination of its shelf-life in combination with new packaging-materials, as well as the attention it deserves as a food important for breeders, the local economy, and consumers, since it is associated with the Cretan-Mediterranean diet type.

The Physicochemical Characterization, Fatty Acid Profile, and Nutritional Indices of the Greek Traditional Cheese “Tsalafouti”

“…Similarly, moisture content was also presented in soft creamy cheeses in the literature such as Tsalafouti (80.3%) in the Koutsoukis et al study [16], Galotyri cheese (76.9%) in the Samelis and Kakouri study [37], and Tvorog cheese (72.18%) in the Bonczar et al study [38]. According to research about spreadable cheeses by Kasapian et al [39], Danezis et al [22], and Lapidakis and Fragkiadakis [12], it was observed that the values of humidity are at high levels in all samples, which may be due to the high-heat treatment of the milk (87-90 • C) [40]. According to Giroux et al [41], the heat treatment of milk increases the recovery of protein in cheese due to the denaturation of whey proteins.…”

“…The most popular Greek varieties of acid-soft spreadable cheese for which there are published data are the following PDO cheeses: Galotyri, Katiki Domokou, Pichtogalo Chanion, Anevato, Kopanisti, and Xygalos of Sitia [11][12][13]. Galotyri is one of the oldest and most popular Greek acid spreadable cheeses traditionally produced with pasteurized milk at 90 • C, which is acidified naturally without starters in the regions of Epirus and Thessaly [13].…”