Rubing () is a firm, acid-set, non-melting, fresh

goat milk Goat milk is the milk of domestic goats. Goats produce about 2% of the world's total annual milk supply. Some goats are bred specifically for milk. Goat milk naturally has small, well-emulsified fat globules, which means the cream will stay i ...

farmer cheese In the United States, farmer cheese (also farmer's cheese or farmers' cheese) is pressed curds, an unripened cheese made by adding rennet and bacterial starter to coagulate and acidify milk. Farmer cheese may be made from the milk of cows ...

made in the

Yunnan Province Yunnan , () is a landlocked province in the southwest of the People's Republic of China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 48.3 million (as of 2018). The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders the ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

by people of the Bai and Sani (recognized as a branch of the Yi in China) minorities.Mozzarella of the East: Cheese-making and Bai culture
/ref> Its Bai name is ''youdbap'', meaning "goat's milk".

Production

Rubing is made by mixing heated goat's milk and a souring agent, traditionally a mixture called ''năiténg'' (奶藤; lit. 'milk vine') made from a cultivated

vine A vine (Latin ''vīnea'' "grapevine", "vineyard", from ''vīnum'' "wine") is any plant with a growth habit of trailing or scandent (that is, climbing) stems, lianas or runners. The word ''vine'' can also refer to such stems or runners themsel ...

Preparation and serving

Rubing is most often

steamed Steaming is a method of cooking using steam. This is often done with a food steamer, a kitchen appliance made specifically to cook food with steam, but food can also be steamed in a wok. In the American southwest, steam pits used for cooking hav ...

with local ham or salt beef, or sometimes served pan fried with salt and chilli. It may also be stir fried with vegetables (typically a mix of

broccoli Broccoli (''Brassica oleracea'' var. ''italica'') is an edible green plant in the cabbage family (family Brassicaceae, genus ''Brassica'') whose large flowering head, stalk and small associated leaves are eaten as a vegetable. Broccoli is cla ...

and

carrot The carrot ('' Daucus carota'' subsp. ''sativus'') is a root vegetable, typically orange in color, though purple, black, red, white, and yellow cultivars exist, all of which are domesticated forms of the wild carrot, ''Daucus carota'', na ...

), in a similar manner to how other mainland Chinese rural cuisine tends to stir-fry harder forms of

tofu Tofu (), also known as bean curd in English, is a food prepared by coagulating soy milk and then pressing the resulting curds into solid white blocks of varying softness; it can be ''silken'', ''soft'', ''firm'', ''extra firm'' or ''super f ...

.photo
/sup> It is also pan fried and served with alternative flavourings such as dry chilli powder, salt, and Sichuan pepper powder.

Relationship to other cheeses

Rubing is roughly similar to

paneer Paneer (), also known as ponir () is a fresh acid-set cheese common in the Indian subcontinent (Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka) made from full-fat buffalo milk or cow milk. It is a non-aged, non-melting sof ...

and queso blanco, but with the aroma of fresh goat's milk.

References

Chinese cheeses Acid-set cheeses Goat's-milk cheeses Yunnan cuisine {{Cheese-stub

Production

Preparation and serving

Relationship to other cheeses

See also

References