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Jāņu Siers (Caraway Curd Cheese Pressed into a Round)
One of Latvia's national dishes, and the one that does something this site has twice said cannot be done. The mozzarella page explains that acid strips the calcium out of casein and leaves a grainy curd, which is why such a curd can never be made to flow; the saganaki page counts a cheese that does not melt at all as a fourth case. Jāņu siers takes that same acid-set curd and makes it into a smooth flowing mass anyway. It does it by adding two things: bicarbonate of soda, which undoes enough of the acid for the casein to take up water and turn plastic, and egg, which binds it. Stir in caraway, press it hot, and it cools into a round you can slice.
