Home Creamery: Chèvre

Chèvre is a cheese that commands a premium in the marketplace. I always assumed that there was a real art to making good chèvre. Turns out that it’s embarrassingly easy!

To make this cheese you need a gallon of goat milk, a packet of chèvre culture, a colander, some butter muslin, a thermometer, and a stainless steel pan with lid. I purchased my culture through New England Cheesemaking Supply Company.

So here’s the big secret. Heat the milk to 86°, sprinkle the culture onto the milk and stir it in, then cover. Keep the covered pan in a warm place for 12 hours while the bacteria do their magic. Then carefully lift the curds into a colander lined with butter muslin. You can leave it in the colander or hang it, your choice. Let it drain for 12 hours. Yield is about 2 pounds. If you’ve made yogurt, you have all the skills needed for chèvre.

You could choose to mold it into logs, or into boules, or not at all. I molded it by packing a ramekin full, then turning the cheese out into a container to marinate. I let the cheese marinate in extra virgin olive oil with some fresh herbs until ready to serve.

The recipes you’ll find usually call for pasteurized goat milk, and that’s the legal thing to do. I, however, am a scofflaw and used raw goat milk. It made a truly delightful chèvre.

Home Creamery: Ricotta Salata

A couple of weeks ago I was out at Kookoolan Farms to take a goat cheese class. While I was there I picked up a nice basket mold for ricotta salata. Raw goat milk was available at a nearby farm. I had everything I needed to try to make ricotta salata.

I decided to follow, more or less, the instructions in Jam It, Pickle It, Cure It. First, I made a batch of Whole Milk Ricotta using a full gallon of raw goat milk. I used the two-pan method to heat the milk; that’s milk in a smaller pan, water in a larger pan, small pan into the water. I find it gives much better control with much less risk of scorching.

The curds are fairly fragile at first, so I carefully ladled them into a colander line with butter muslin. Then I used a food-safe rubber band to make the muslin into a bag and hang it from the skimmer to let the cheese drain.

After an hour, I carefully transferred the curds to the ricotta mold. I used a bit of plastic over the cheese, then set a plate on top and a can of tomatoes on the plate to use as a weight.

The instructions say to remove the cheese from the mold after an hour and turn it over. That didn’t seem reasonable because of the shape of the mold, so I added more weight and continued to press the cheese for about 8 hours.

When I was satisfied that it was drained as thoroughly as it would be, I unmolded the cheese and salted it liberally with cheese salt. Then I wrapped it in cheesecloth and put it into the refrigerator. Every couple of days for the next two weeks I salted the cheese and changed the cheesecloth.

The cheese turned out very tasty and fairly creamy, with a slight hint of goaty-ness. It isn’t a grateable cheese, but that’s just a matter of continuing to age it before tasting.

Overall, I’m rather pleased with the result, especially because this was my first attempt at making a semi-hard cheese. Now that I know cheesemaking isn’t really all that difficult, I’ll try some longer-aging cheeses.

Home Creamery: Mascarpone

Mascarpone, the queen of dessert cheeses. At least it is when it’s freshly made. The mascarpone available in most stores is a little rubbery and a bit too citrusy. The real thing has a texture like whipped cream about to turn to butter and an ethereal, ever-so-slightly tart flavor.

To make mascarpone you’ll need tartaric acid. In spite of what you might have read, cream of tartar is not tartaric acid; rather, it’s a derivative of tartaric acid. You cannot subsitute one for the other with any hope of success. In the picture to the right, the powdery cream of tartar is on the left, and the crystaline tartaric acid is on the right.

You’ll also need a double boiler setup of some sort, or you could just use two pans like I did. A thermometer is mandatory. You’ll need to line a stainless steel colander with a double layer of butter muslin to finish the cheese. Set the colander into a bowl to catch the whey.

Heat one quart/liter of half-and-half or cream to 185°F/85°C. Then add ¼ teaspoon/1.25mL tartaric acid and stir until the dairy thickens. It should be thick enough to be reminiscent of cream of wheat or farina, and the spoon or whisk you’re stirring with should leave tracks behind. It takes a good five minutes or so to coagulate, so have some patience.

When the dairy is thickened, pour it into the muslin-lined colander and let it drain for about an hour at room temperature. Carefully spoon the cheese into a container, cover, and refrigerate overnight; in a dessert emergency, you can use it once it’s chilled a couple of hours. It will keep in the refrigerator up to two weeks, not that you’ll have any around that long.

Mascarpone has many uses: cannoli, tiramisu, cheesecake, or it can be served plain. I used it to make the dessert pictured above, which has quartered strawberries in mint simple syrup on the bottom, mascarpone, and Rainier cherries on top. The dollop on top that looks like whipped cream? More mascarpone. Delicious.

Strawberry-Ricotta Tartlet

Strawberries may well be my favorite food. Not surprising, really, when you consider that I was born within sight of Mt. Hood at the time of year when Hood strawberries are just right! To celebrate my birthday I thought it would be lovely to have a nice strawberry tart. But I couldn’t decide exactly how it should look, so I made tartlets.

I started by making some Vanilla Shortbread Dough. I used Madagascar Bourbon vanilla extract instead of Tahitian, and replaced the vanilla paste with powdered freeze-dried strawberries to give the dough a bit of kick. I followed my own instructions, and didn’t worry when the dough cracked before baking. Remember to chill the tartlet shells before baking. I baked them for about 13 minutes at 350°F/175°C.

While the tartlet shells were baking, I mixed some whole milk ricotta with about a teaspoon of honey,  some puréed strawberries, and a hint of cinnamon. Once the shells were finished baking and cooling, I filled them with the ricotta. If I had had some, I would have used strawberry honey, which is honey from hives in which the bees harvest pollen from strawberry fields.

The strawberries went into a bowl of cold water along with several sprigs of spearmint from the garden. Then it was just a matter of selecting berries that were just right, slicing them, and laying them into the shells, sometimes with mint leaves interspersed. To finish, I melted some strawberry jam and brushed it onto the berries.

As I said, I couldn’t decide exactly how the tart should look, so I made two sizes of tartlets and then decorated each a little differently. One of them featured whole berries.

I also made several smaller tartlets, decorating them as flowers.

Now the only problem I have is that I have to eat them, and I can’t figure out which one to eat first!

Ricotta-Stuffed Tomatoes

I’d just finished making ricotta. It was so soft and creamy that I just had to use it for supper. Ravioli would have been nice, but I didn’t have the time or energy. Then I remembered the roma tomatoes sitting in the produce basket.

The tomatoes were easy enough to prepare. After washing them, I sliced them in half, then used a melon baller to scoop out the seeds. I sprinkled some sel gris on the inside, then turned them over on a paper towel to let them dry out a bit.

The refrigerator yielded garlic confit and caramelized onions. The herb garden provided greek oregano, basil, flat-leaf parsley, and rosemary. I chopped everything up and added the mixture to some ricotta. After tasting I added a pinch of Fleur de Sel, then covered it to let the flavors get acquainted for about half an hour.

To finish the dish, I stuffed the tomatoes with the herbed ricotta, which I topped with crushed garlic-parmesan crostini.  Then I baked them at 400°F (205°C) for 20 minutes. Roasted beets and a green salad completed a very satisfying meatless dinner.

I served this as a main course, so allowed one tomato per person. As a side dish, I would serve a single half.