Lajta sajt

Appearance & taste

Lajta sajt is an elongated block 19 to 21 cm long, 7 to 9 cm wide and 5.5 to 7 cm high, weighing 1 to 1.2 kg. The top and bottom are flat, the edges slightly rounded. The thin, flexible rind is porous and uniformly reddish to yellow. The paste is evenly yellowish to reddish, and the cut surface is densely and evenly interspersed with cracks. It is easy to cut, rather soft and crumbles in the mouth. The cheese has at least 50 % dry matter, 50 % ± 2.5 % fat in dry matter and 1.5 % ± 0.5 % salt.

The smell is slightly spicy and slightly milky, the taste slightly sour, slightly spicy, aromatic and pleasantly salty. According to the specification, the cheese owes its character above all to the rapid breakdown of protein during ripening, which makes it crumbly and slightly soft; its texture lies between that of a soft and a semi-soft cheese. The packaging must bear the Hungarian statement “zsíros, belső érlelésű, rúzsflórás, félkemény sajtkülönlegesség” (full-fat, semi-soft cheese speciality ripened inside with red ferments).

Production

The milk is prepared and coagulated with enzymes. The curd is cut and worked, and the cheese is moulded, pressed and salted. It ripens at a relative humidity of over 90 % on boards made exclusively of pine wood. These boards are essentially the source of the most important ripening flora, Brevibacterium linens; it appears on the fourth or fifth day as a pale yellow coating on the surface and multiplies naturally in the area.

Every three to four days the cheeses are carefully turned by hand and washed with brine so that the bacteria grow; they must not be wiped in the process. After two weeks the red smear completely covers the surface. Ripening progresses from the outside towards the centre. Yeasts that thrive naturally on the surface break down lactate, so that the pH of the rind rises quickly, and by the second week 50 to 60 % of the proteins have been converted into peptides. After three weeks an ammonia smell and taste become noticeable and the paste grows ever softer; from the third week the cheese must therefore be stored at 2 to 8 °C. All steps from coagulation to wiping and drying take place in the area.

Origin & history

Győr-Moson-Sopron county is the traditional milk-producing region of north-western Hungary. The cheese is named after the river Lajta, which flows into the Moson Danube at Mosonmagyaróvár.

In the first half of the 20th century, high-quality milk production and a strong knowledge base came together in this region: the agricultural academy in Mosonmagyaróvár, the Hungarian Dairy Research Institute, the training centre in Csermajor and the dairies in Mosonmagyaróvár, Csermajor and Levél. This gave rise in the 1930s to the production method of Lajta sajt, which was adopted into dairy technology in the 1950s.