Description
Ġbejna is a round cheeselet made in the Maltese Islands from goat’s or sheep milk, salt and rennet. Virtually all sheep milk and most goat milk produced in Malta is used for the production of these cheeselets, much of it through family-owned cottage industries.
Ġbejna is shaped in a cheese hurdle made of indigenous dried reeds, although now even plastic ones are used. They are traditionally dried in small ventilated rooms, with windows protected by a special mesh mosquito net. It is said that in the past, sea water, rather than rennet, was used as a curdling agent.
It is prepared and served in a variety of forms: fresh, sundried salt cured or peppered.
