Dried Milk Curds 奶疙瘩
Dried Milk Curds is featured among the local specialties of Xinjiang.
Dried Milk Curds (奶疙瘩) are lumps of cooked milk curd dried in the open air, made by Kazakh herding families in Altay Prefecture (阿勒泰地区) as part of their everyday dairy food. The Keketuohai Scenic Area Management Committee in Fuyun County (富蕴县) lists several kinds: sour, yellow, black and sweet curds.
How it is made
On the seasonal pastures, once the herd is settled and the felt yurt is up, the women choose a fine day to start making curd, and gauze bundles of milk straining outside almost every yurt are a common sight. Jiangaguli Hamiti (江阿古丽·哈米提), a dairy maker from Fuhai County (福海县) in Altay, described the process to People's Daily. Milk is collected over several days until there is enough, cooled and stirred, then boiled. The butter is lifted off, and the rest is wrapped in gauze and hung outside to drain. It is then pressed into lumps and dried for three days. The lumps must not dry in harsh direct sun, or they crack and turn black.
Milk changes with the season: spring milk is thin and autumn milk thick, and one kilogram of milk yields about 200 grams of cheese. Herders work without exact measures, so each family's curds taste slightly different; the starter culture (引子) matters most.
How it is eaten
Dairy food goes with every meal in a herding household, and sour milk curds (酸奶疙瘩) are a favourite snack of herders' children, who gather round the curds while they dry, each picking out the pieces they want, until an elder shouts at them not to eat any yet. In Fuhai, Jiangaguli Hamiti has trained more than ten apprentices and runs an outlet selling dried curds, cheese, butter and yogurt made by herself and other herders.
Sources & reading
Written from the linked sources and checked sentence by sentence against quoted extracts by a separate reviewer on 2026-09-25. Recipes and servings vary between kitchens.