Ongoing Project!

Cheese and cheese and more cheese! A lot of the members of House Capuchin love cheese. We’ve been making cheese and eating cheese at potlucks and events and snacks and feasts since the House got started back in 2013, but only recently started branching out into more experiments.

This page is sort-of in chronological order from most recent into the past with some resources at the bottom plus a few mixed through the text. I haven’t put the “incidental” cheeses in here, ones that were repeats and just text, nothing unusual. This is *still* a way-long page!

Next Cheese experiment to be scheduled!

1/13/20 – 12th Night and Two Simple Cheese class

Cookery – Working on cheese and food for the trip.

  • Monday was cooking a tvarog.
  • Tuesday – finished tvarog and did a savory almond cheese.
  • Wednesday was all making equipment lists for the cheese class
  • Friday – Cheeses for class

Saturday – Loren and I started setting up the cheese stuff, then we both got naps. I woke and tended cheeses and such until it was time for class. I ended up doing a couple of mini-classes, both on the cheese and one on the almond cheese that I did during that break. I got to visit with a couple of the students that came in early and found that one lives in Eugene and one in Drain. We had one younger student who was very enthusiastic about stirring the warming milk and that was a good grin. We whomped through the whole class with a few minutes left to spare. Everyone got to take cheese home and to sample textures and flavors. I got the class fees and everyone’s names, too!

At the end of class-time a couple more people showed up to get samples. We spent some time chatting until that thinned out and then we started packing down. It took awhile, since Loren got some of the dishes done so they could just get put by when we got home.

Sunday – Unpacking & Project Day – We were so tired from the event that we slept very late. We finally got to unpacking the cheese stuff and getting that put away after dark, but I got photos and then Loren put all the stuff away. We have 3 recipes of tvarog to eat up! Some work happened on the pear pincushion, but we’ll get that into next week’s report.

Class cheeses

Finishing up.

1/5/20

Almond cheese – Edited Recipe – Makes approximately a quarter of a pound of “cheese”

Make thick almond milk, first

  • 5 cup ground almonds
  • 2 cup water
  1. Put in food processor and whirl until creamy.
  2. Strain through a fine sieve to get the almond bits out.
  3. Then put the following into a pot and heat to boiling. Be careful not to overheat or burn.
  • 2 cups thick almond milk
  • 1/2 tsp. salt
  • Pinch saffron, rubbed (optional)
  1. Heat for five minutes and then add vinegar to your almond milk. It will immediately thicken and start to curdle. You can also add a dash of wine to the mixture instead of vinegar. Continue to cook for another five minutes or so stirring so that the milk doesn’t burn.
  • 1/2 TBSP. red wine vinegar
  • Sugar or salt to taste
  • Flavorings (powder douce, garlic and rosemary, or whatever suits you) Suggested 2 tablespoons of sugar plus 2 teaspoons of the powder douce
  • Garnish (comfits, flowers, fresh herbs, etc.)
  1. Remove from heat and strain through a cheesecloth for several hours or overnight.
  2. When the dripping has stopped, remove the almond mixture from the cloth and place it in a bowl. Discard liquid.
  3. Add sugar (or salt) to taste in the bowl. If the mixture is a bit too dry or crumbly wine can be added as well. Flavorings can be added in the bowl (stronger) or while cooking (milder)
  4. Garnish

After 8 hours dripping out….

The flavor is good, in fact it tastes like pumpkin pie without the pumpkin! The texture is good, like a cream cheese spread. There’s a slightly bitter aftertaste that is either the amount of cinnamon, or the red wine vinegar, mostly likely, but after the first bite, you don’t notice it at all.

So next up is a savory, since we’ve done a sweet.

Excerpted from http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD-DAIRY/Al-Milk-Cheese-art.html 

a fyne xij. Fride Creme of Almaundys. — Take almaundys, an sta?«pe hem, an draw it vp wyth thykke mylke, y-temperyd wyth clene water; throw hem on, an sette hem in fe fyre, an let boyle onys : fan tak hem a-down,an caste salt )7er-on, an let hem reste a forlongwey  or to, an caste a lytyl sugre Jier-to ; an J^an caste it on a fayre lynen clothe, fayre y-wasche an drye, an caste it al a-brode on fe clothe with a fayre ladel : an let Je clothe ben holdyn a-brode, an late all j^e water vnder-nethe fe clothe be had a-way, an panne gadere alle fe kreme in fe clothe, an let hongy on an pyn, and let fe water droppe owt to’ or .iij. owrys ; ) an take it of Je pyn, an put it on a bolle of tre, and caste whyte sugre y-now ]7er-to, an a lytil salt  and if it Tvexe Jikke, take swete wyn an put ]jer-to ‘pat it be nojt sene : and whan it is I-dressid in the maner of mortrewys, take red anys in comfyte, or ]’e leuys of borage, an sette hem on Je dysshe, an serue forth.

Recipe can be found here: Full text of “Two fifteenth-century cookery-books. Harleian ms. 279 (ab. 1430), & Harl. ms. 4016 (ab. 1450), with extracts from Ashmole ms. 1429, Laud ms. 553, & Douce ms. 55” ( http://www.archive.org/stream/twofifteenthcent00aust/twofifteenthcent00aust_djvu.txt )

For more information on this and similar recipes, please visit Dan Myers “Medieval Cookery” at http://www.medievalcookery.com

xij – Fride Creme of Almaundys. Take almaundys, an stampe hem, an draw it vp wyth a fyne thykke mylke, y-temperyd wyth clene water; throw hem on, an sette hem in the fyre, an let boyle onys: than tak hem a-down, an caste salt ther-on, an let hem reste a forlongwey (Note: Other MS. forlange.) or to, an caste a lytyl sugrether-to; an than caste it on a fayre lynen clothe, fayre y-wasche an drye, an caste it al a-brode on the clothe with a fayre ladel: an let the clothe ben holdyn a-brode, an late all the water vnder-nethe the clothe be had a-way, an thanne gadere alle the kreme in the clothe, an let hongy on an pyn, and let the water droppe owt to (Note: two.) or .iij. owrys; than take it of the pyn, an put it on a bolle of tre, and caste whyte sugre y-now ther-to, an a lytil salt; and 3if it wexe thikke, take swetewyn an put ther-to that it be no3t sene: and whan it is I-dressid in the maner of mortrewys, take red anys in comfyte, or the leuys of borage, an sette hem on the dysshe, an serue forth.

  1. Cold Cream of Almonds. Take almonds, and stamp them, and draw it up with a fine thick milk, tempered with clean water, throw them on, and set them on the fire, and let boil once: then take them down, and cast salt thereon, an let them rest a furlongway or two, and cast a little sugar thereto; and then caste it on a fair linen cloth, fair washed and dried, and cast it all above on the cloth with a fair ladle: an let the cloth be held above and let all the water underneath the cloth be had away, an than gather all the cream in the cloth, and let hang on a pin, and let the water drop out two or three hours; then take off the pin and put it in a bowl of wood, and caste white sugar thereto that it is not seen: and when it is dressed in the manner of mortrewys, take read anise in http://giveitforth.blogspot.com/2015/09/comfits.html” comfit, or the petals of borage, and set them on the dish, and serve it forth.

Almond milk link – http://giveitforth.blogspot.com/2015/01/almond-milk.html

Interpreted Recipe  Makes approximately a quarter of a pound of “cheese”

  •  2 cups thick almond milk
  • 1/2 tsp. salt
  • 1/4 tsp. red wine vinegar*
  • Sugar to taste

Once you have made the almond milk, you will need to strain the mixture through a sieve to remove as much of the almond bits as you can.  Put the strained almond milk and salt into a pot and heat to boiling being careful not to overheat or to burn it.

Note: Saffron can be added to the almond milk to make it yellow like butter at this stage.  I did that and I was impressed with the results.

Heat for five minutes and then add a dash of wine or vinegar to your almond milk. It will immediately thicken and start to curdle. You can also add a dash of wine to the mixture instead of vinegar. Continue to cook for another five minutes or so stirring so that the milk doesn’t burn.

Remove from heat and strain through a cheesecloth for several hours or overnight.  When the dripping has stopped, remove the almond mixture from the cloth and place it in a bowl.  Unlike making cheese from dairy, the liquid that is produced from the almonds can be discarded.  The whey from cheese making is full of whey protein and can be used in smoothies or baking.

Add sugar to taste in the bowl.  If the mixture is a bit too dry or crumbly wine can be added as well.  I used approximately 2 tablespoons of sugar and then I added 2 teaspoons of the pouder douce to this.  I did not need to add wine because the addition of the sugar made the almond “cheese” very smooth, similar to cream cheese. At this point I imagine you would be able to caste it into molds, or serve it in bowls garnished with comfits, or flowers if you see fit.

11/24/19

Almond Milk Cheese by HL Bronwyn ni Mhathain found on http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD-DAIRY/Al-Milk-Cheese-art.html 

Recipe can be found here: Full text of “Two fifteenth-century cookery-books. Harleian ms. 279 (ab. 1430), & Harl. ms. 4016 (ab. 1450), with extracts from Ashmole ms. 1429, Laud ms. 553, & Douce ms. 55” ( http://www.archive.org/stream/twofifteenthcent00aust/twofifteenthcent00aust_djvu.txt )

Interpreted Recipe  Makes approximately a quarter of a pound of “cheese”

  • 2 cups thick almond milk
  • 1/2 tsp. salt
  • 1/4 tsp. red wine vinegar*
  • Sugar to taste
  • Pouder Douce
  1. Once you have made the almond milk, you will need to strain the mixture through a sieve to remove as much of the almond bits as you can. Put the strained almond milk and salt into a pot and heat to boiling being careful not to overheat or to burn it. Note: Saffron can be added to the almond milk to make it yellow like butter at this stage. I did that and I was impressed with the results.
  2. Heat for five minutes and then add a dash of wine or vinegar to your almond milk. It will immediately thicken and start to curdle. You can also add a dash of wine to the mixture instead of vinegar. Continue to cook for another five minutes or so stirring so that the milk doesn’t burn.
  3. Remove from heat and strain through a cheesecloth for several hours or overnight. When the dripping has stopped, remove the almond mixture from the cloth and place it in a bowl. Unlike making cheese from dairy, the liquid that is produced from the almonds can be discarded. The whey from cheese making is full of whey protein and can be used in smoothies or baking.
  4. Add sugar to taste in the bowl. If the mixture is a bit too dry or crumbly wine can be added as well. I used approximately 2 tablespoons of sugar and then I added 2 teaspoons of the pouder douce to this. I did not need to add wine because the addition of the sugar made the almond “cheese” very smooth, similar to cream cheese. At this point I imagine you would be able to caste it into molds, or serve it in bowls garnished with comfits, or flowers if you see fit.

Still trying to track down what “thick almond milk” means..

6/23/19

Two finished cheeses wrapped in rum-soaked fig leaves, left peeled back to show the cheese

6/9/19 – Links

6/2/19

Commentary on foodstuffs from the potluck and the vigils (edited to just the cheeses) 

  • Sasha – The cheese [dill/onion scalded milk] is my favorite, although the texture was to much to eat it by itself. Ended up dipping pretzel sticks in it, and it was awesome.
  • James Defazio <moltenskies@gmail.com> – May 25 at 11:16 PM – So far, as I’ve gradually eaten at things, my favorite is the potted cheese. I bought some “everything” bagels to put the last of it on, it was really good. Might be better on some kind of French bread, though. The scalded milk cheese is so-so to me, it might be that I just don’t like the flavor of plain milk that much and from what I recall of the recipe for scalded milk, it’s just that.
  • Erika Milo  – The soft white cheese [Mustard/Caraway/Horseradish scalded milk] was enjoyed by many, and continued to be enjoyed the next day on rice, in scrambled eggs, etc.! I also really liked the cheese in the crock [potted cheese], and the pickled watermelon, which surprised me.
  • Steve Jarvis – My partner REALLY liked that cheese! 🙂 [Mustard/Caraway/Horseradish scalded milk]
  • Jennifer Smith – The cheese was a huge hit, [dill/onion scalded milk]
  • Vestia Antonia Aurelia – “”I wanted to thank everyone who made my vigil and elevation so fantastic. (And for me, it was fantastic.) I am enjoying Anja‘s boozy marzipan Right Now.  ;)””

5/26/19

In the last stage of molding/draining/spicing

Anja’s take (Tuesday night) – I started milk for another cheese at about 1:45am. By 3,  the milk was close to temp. By 3:30, the milk still wasn’t there! At 3:45 the milk was finally close enough to temp to hit it with the vinegar. I got some of the curd into a mold and spiced and then covered the rest to let it stand a little. That got finished around 5am. The last cheese was in the mold at 6:40.

Below is a gallery of the whole….

5/5/19

So, the cheese was finally started at 8:05pm on Tuesday. We added 1/2 a vanilla bean, and a bunch of ground nutmeg, with more of that added at the last minute. Cider vinegar was the “coagulant”. We used brown sugar for a sweetener.

The worst part of making this style of cheese is that it has to heat slowly, so it seems to take forever. At 9:30- it was still only up to 115F. We’d go back every 15 minutes, stir, test the temp, turn up the heat one more notch… at 9:50 it was at 135. …and at 10:45, only to 175….

Finally, just after 11pm it hit temp and curdled with a bit of vinegar thrown in, so it got ladled into the cheese cloth and hung by 11:15.

Anja tried some at about 1am, and liked it, but to go with the pancakes it needed fruit and sugar, so that got added about an hour later, shaken a couple of times and fridged.

2/3/19

Thursday was the cheese. It was started Wednesday evening, then slowly warmed Thursday evening until it curdled, cooked for an hour, then was poured into the mold and spiced and the ricotta started. The ricotta got added to the bottom of the cheese, instead of being stored separately. Friday morning the cheese was unmolded and partly fell apart, so it got flipped over in the box and just mashed together.

1/20/19

11/18/18

The fig rennet cheese spiced with cheese salt (caraway, mustard, wasabi powder in salt)

11/4/18

Found some info on nettle cheese (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1878450X16300178) and ordered some cardoon rennet.

Fresh unripe fig cheese – With the 1/2 dozen fresh figs that we tried this with last time, it didn’t work right, so Anja asked around Waldport for more and started the cheese on Thursday evening.

She used 10 unripe figs, heated the milk to 110 and left it overnight. Friday evening it was curdling, (or starting to at room temp), so she heated it to 110 (when it really started to curdle) got it up to 120 and left it to release the whey. After an hour it was ladled into a mold and left to drain for another hour while a batch of ricotta was made from the whey and both were fridged and left until Sunday.

The stuff doesn’t curdle the way it does with commercial rennets. It looks more like sour milk until it’s heated and *then* you can see it curdle. No clue, yet, if that’s common, or just an artifact of how late in the year I’m doing this.

Saturday

Sunday – Instead of cold brining, I’m rolling it in a spiced salt (caraway, mustard and salt). …and it *completely* lost structural integrity, so it’s in the form of spiced curds in a box, at the current time. The ricotta actually was stiffer!

Sewing – Some fabrics for small pouc

10/21/18

Sunday night, right after the report went out, the cheese finally curdled! That meant that Loren had to scramble to get the molds drilled and Anja needed to sit with the cheese to make sure that it was going to be ok.

On Monday the cheese got finished after a snafu with the brine and was left to cool and drain. On Wednesday the next batch finally curdled

and got finished on Friday.

On Thursday another was started with the unripe figs and it didn’t quite work, so it got some rennet added and finished on Friday.

Cheeses – Fig sap rennet

This was started Saturday evening. By Sunday morning there was only a little touch of thickening, so Anja barked a 2nd twig (total of about 22 inches) and added it. It suddenly curdled at about 7pm! It was a soft curd again, but not quite as bubbly or wet as last time. We added garlic and onion powder and dill weed. By 10:30 it was in the molds and being pressed. By 11, one of the bottoms was done and in the mold and the cheese flipped. They sat in the fridge overnight, then were unmolded and brined in the morning. We used 6 cups water, 1/2 cup salt for the brine.

…and people on one of the cheese fora were kinda weirded out by brining in a cloth, so I didn’t. 🙂 …well, the cheeses started to fall apart! So, they got scooped up, put back into the molds and listened to me cuss…. So, they started brining at 11:20 and were put back into the molds at 11:40 and left until 12:40. Once they were pulled out they were put in “drain boxes” (made for veggies) and set in the fridge.

On Tuesday (10/17) some of the cheese got tasted. It *wasn’t* bitter, or if it was, the brining ameliorated the bitterness. It was incredibly salty, but I’m putting that to the explosion in the brine and putting it back into the molds. It was very dry, even though it molded well, almost crumbly, and some did crumble as it was cut. One of the two was wrapped in pickled grape leaf and left for Sunday.

Loren went out and got another gallon of milk, figuring to actually see how long the curdling takes with the smaller amount of fig twig. That batch was started at 11pm. At 11am you could just barely see that something was happening. At 3pm it got stirred well. and again at 7pm and 10pm and it still wasn’t curdling. It didn’t curdle and didn’t curdle and didn’t curdle even after 24 hours, so it got another batch of twigs in at 2am, Wednesday morning.

At 8am, still not much curdling, but you could see something was happening and then at 5pm it finally was turning to curds all through. Phew! It got cooked that evening, and Anja re-cooked the whey for recocta (ricotta), but didn’t get brined until Friday.

Thursday evening we started another gallon of milk with the unripe figs. The milk was brought to 110 or so, the figs chopped, and added and the pot left under towels overnight.

Friday – It’s possible that the Thursday cheese might have curdled if heated (didn’t think of it in time), but we added rennet and then it really did. The odd part was that there were two layers of curd. One was the usually foamy stuff that the figs produce (that floats), the other was the standard rennet (that sinks) that cut. If you look carefully at the pic of the curd, you can see the cut ones in the center. Anja cooked it by the schiz recipe and molded it for that purpose. …and then the Tuesday brined cheeses exploded out of the molds. There’s got to be a trick for that… but the 3rd cheese of the 2nd batch got *cold* brined. We’ll see if that works. So there are two over-brined cheeses (one of which is grape-leaf-wrapped, plus 4 schiz (which didn’t fit in the boxes either….) We quit at midnight with everything done and fridged and us, really frustrated.

Sunday – The tasting

One person loved the fresca and four liked it. Two loved the cold-brined ricotta/regular one and two liked it. 3 enjoyed the leaf-wrapped one and the others got tasted and pronounced, “ok”

Fig rennet cheeses – Clockwise from left: overbrined dill/onion, dill/onion wrapped in pickled grape leaf, fresca, cold-brined, plain

9/9/18

Loren went out to get milk for the cheese at 5:30 pm, while Anja worked on the carrots, and then we were able to get started, finally, at 6:40pm.

We tried for the “flow of milky sap” that the books talk about…. ’nuffin’s… so the branch got peeled and chucked into the milk while it was warming to room temp and a bit over to sit overnight. So this is a “to be continued” for next week’s report!

…what *is* that scent on my hands from the branch? ….

This is the link to the article…. http://blog.cheesemaking.com/making-rennet-from-fig-sap/

Cheese-making from the Tacuinam Sanitatis

Next morning…. We thought the fig sap rennet didn’t work. Nothing was visibly separating along the sides of the pot, but when Anja lifted the lid, there was a *huge* bubble up of curd! The curd was stirred, rather than cut, then heated to 120F and left at that temp for about 10 minutes while Anja got the cheese vessels set up and together. There wasn’t a lot of room, since other projects (including a non-period carrot soup) had been happening there but she scooped out the curds with the big ladle into the cloth, salting/spicing as she went. That got set aside because more curd, (although little pieces) was floating in the whey. A cloth over the strainer was to catch them as the whey went through the cloth. Best laid plans…. The whey built up, rather than going through the muslin and then the screen tipped into the pot. Ok, try again, screen went into the cookpot and the whey was repoured and again a flood cascaded onto the floor, then again when Anja went to pick up the muslin, it shot out every crevice and fold… Well, she didn’t smell like sour milk, just odd from the rennet.

So after hanging for 18 hours I used these instructions for brining. https://tavolamediterranea.com/2017/08/24/making-cheese-romans-columellas-cheese/ She said, 5 Tbsp for 4 cups of water. Our cup was way wider, so we used 8 cups and a heaping 1/2 cup of salt. Instructions said to bring to a rolling boil and then simmer for an hour. There wasn’t quite enough water, but it worked well enough.

Served over the weekend – There was a tent with potluck foodstuff, so that’s where the cheese was placed. I cut it and grabbed a bit for myself and I *liked* it. It’s a good eating cheese, not too salty, not too crumbly, and dry enough to not be sticky in the mouth. It was all gone, but for scraps and one chunk that I snagged out for Loren, by the time we were done on Sunday!

8/5/18

Tvarog – As you can see it’s already 1/2 gone!

Anja wanted to start a cheese on Monday to get cooked on Tuesday. A tvarog has to sit out, culturing, overnight. 1 1/2 cups of buttermilk 4 1/2 of milk 2 cups cream all went into a 1/2 gallon jar to sit out on the table. Tuesday evening it went into a pot on the fire and, once again, Anja got distracted and let it go to too high a temperature. It seemed to curdle just fine, though, and after hanging for several hours was salted and packed at room temp, not fridge temp, which made the salting easier. On Wednesday it went into a pocket bread sandwich with fresh tomatoes. Not period, but really tasty!

On Saturday a pot of lentils got started, so’s to feed people on Sunday.

5/27/18

Miscellaneous pix

5/13/18

More experiments with making sandwiches with last week’s scalded milk cheese. The cheese, hot on bread, turns out to be really good.

Tvarog got cooked on Thursday.It was an inadvertent experiment in how long the stuff will keep in the fridge, since it got put by Sunday morning. It was almost curdled enough without cooking, actually, although it got done for the usual time. It was hung to drip out overnight and spiced on Friday and then packed in small jars, this time. It was very dry, and didn’t pack as tightly as usual.

Sewing – Pouches are proceeding. Trying to find lining/backing fabrics.

5/16/18

4/15/17 – Baba Raisa’s Kitchen Hrudka – https://madmimi.com/p/b673fb?fe=1&pact=156653-144697766-9925497113-9edf4c1e430b3c7bc224b581554bf7586aa71d97 )

2/23/18 Winter Feast

Smazeny syr a nakládané zelí – Fried cheese and fried pickled cabbage

Next was a recipe of schiz. That’s the Italian cheese I’ve been making that fries up well. I had that heating by 10:30. It takes a long time of cooking to get it right. It takes over an hour of heating, standing, re-heating and draining, then molding the cheese, too. By 1am that was draining and I was making ricotta with what was left in the pot. By 2 the ricotta was draining.

Tvarog (cultured milk cheese)

The tvarog took preparation, mostly. It was set over the heater at 2:3am to culture overnight. I also managed to get the whey taken care of and squeezed the schiz one more time before putting it into the fridge.

Kimmelny tvarog – Caraway Cheese

12/13/17

…and we fried some cheese to go with. (Recipe was Sciz)

By SKopp – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=34658243

7/7/17 – Loren found an article about “Quark” which is the kind of cheese that Anja calls “Scalded Milk Cheese” or “Tvarog”. The Wiki article is here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quark_(dairy_product)

This is a cheese that was around before even the Norse. No one’s really sure how old it is, but it certainly pre-dates the Roman Empire!

7/2/17 – Cheese and Wine Workshop – Just a few pix this time from the day and some from Sunday. We tried molding the Schiz recipe which worked really well for frying. The cheese was “wetter” than this one has been. Anja is guessing that she didn’t cook the curds long enough.

Cheese

6/25/17 – The cheese balls from 6/18/17 got used for the House Potluck!

6/18/17 – So the mozzarella experiment got tried. It took awhile to collect the tools, but once we got started it went pretty fast. It didn’t end up with the right texture, though. 😦 It took about 2 hours, start to finish, counting letting the whey cool enough to put it in the fridge. Best guess on the texture probably is that the cheese didn’t get/stay hot enough to stretch and something happened also with the curdling too soon. Bad measurement?

6/3/17 – Cheese and Wine Workshop – … was on Wednesday evening. We made another recipe of Schizz, since that one’s pretty easy and no one had a lot of ambition. We used lemon and regular thyme, basil and chives in this one. The interesting thing was that a red color cooked out of the basil that left a slight orange tint in the cheese.

5/28/17 – Lump of Schiz went to Tryggr’s vigil at Egil’s Tourney.

Cheese and Wine Workshop

5/18/17 – Amor was here for a quick visit. He’s Loren and Anja’s son that’s in the Air Force who is moving to Eskalya in Oertha. He wanted to see cheese being made, so that happened Wednesday night and then the cheese got fried on Thursday!

He liked it and took 1/2 with him on the next leg of his trip!

What was even funnier was that his little dog, Pooka, was having all kinds of fun licking everyone’s hands and faces after we had eaten our share!

Cheese and Wine Workshop

5/5-6 – We found a recipe for Schiz (pronounced Skee, apparently) an Italian cheese that is fried before eating. We had been talking about it all week, but finally managed to get all the pieces together on Friday (5/5) and started in. It called for heating the milk slowly, and it took 45 minutes to get up to temperature. We added caraway, dill and celery seed to the milk as it warmed.

At 8:30 the rennet (junket) went in and at 9 went back and checked. No break! …. so I heated the milk back up the 5 degrees it had lost and added an 1/2 tab of a different rennet (the new vegetable rennet). Kinda crossed our fingers and prayed. 🙂 …The next time the curd “broke” so I went on cutting the curd, then cooking some more. By 10:30 the curd had cooked and the whey was starting to look right, so we started draining the whey. We had to use two cloths because the cloth we started with was too thick! (The cheesecloth had gone walkabout….again!)

By 11, it was all hanging and cooling. By 11:20 it was still dripping, only molded in the cloth like some of the italian cheeses, but it’d been salted, which it didn’t say in the recipe when to do! We broke up the mostly-dripped-out curd, salted, squoze and re-hung and then it went into the fridge, along with the re-bottled whey. It was tasty both with and without the salt, but it’s definitely a damp cheese. I see why this one gets sliced and fried. Ricotta from the whey tomorrow!

…and then fridged overnight to drip some more, which it did very little of. The pot below was dry.

Anja says, “Sunday evening, I pulled out the cheese, sliced it and then fried some. ….omgs…. I haven’t had fried cheese that good in a long, long time! You can only do that with cheeses that don’t melt. My Baba used to get a cheese with a similar texture from a local Czech butcher shop, but they closed before I was a teenager. I haven’t found any cheese that worked as well until now!” The thing is that the not-expensive American cheese “all” melt. We haven’t been able to afford an artisanal cheese and this qualifies.

The process was rather similar to this one, except we didn’t press it.

Schiz – NICOLO SANTORIO·TUESDAY, MAY 2, 2017 – Schiz (pronounced “skee”) is a fresh cow’s milk cheese from the Dolomites in Northern Italy. It’s only good for a few days and is fried in a pan before eating, usually served with polenta.

Ingredients:

  • 1 gallon of milk (not ultra-pasteurized)
  • Liquid rennet (1/4 tsp) or 1/4 tablet.
  • (optional) Calcium chloride for pasteurized cold stored milk

Tools

  • Good thermometer.
  • Large pot
  • Ladle
  • Knife or cake spatula to cut the curds
  • A basket molds or any other good draining mold.
  1. Pour the milk in to the clean pot and heat milk slowly to 96° F (35° C), then take it off the heat source.
  2. Add 1/4 tsp (1.25ml) single strength rennet or ~ 1/4 tablet. Stir for one minute with an up and down motion with the spoon or ladle, then stop the milk moving with a slight back stir.
  3. Put a lid on and leave milk to set for 30 minutes.
  4. Cut the coagulated curd in a grid pattern with your knife, with about 1-2 cm between cuts, keeping the knife vertical. Allow this to set for 2-3 minutes while the whey begins to show in the cuts. Then cut again following the existing cuts, but this time hold the knife at a 45 degree angle. Be gentle so you don’t mash the curds up.
  5. Return to the heat and set to very low, continuing to monitor the temperature so that it doesn’t go above 120°. The total cooking time will be 20-30 minutes. The longer it is cooked, the drier the final cheese will be. The final curds should be cooked well through and should be examined to make sure that enough moisture has been removed. A broken curd should be firm throughout and the curds should have a moderate resistance when pressed between the fingers.
  6. Remove the whey with a ladle to about an inch above the surface of the curds. Leaving a bit of whey for the transfer will help the cheese consolidate.
  7. Transfer the curds to the basket mold and allow the whey to drain. A small amount of weight (1-2 lbs) can help consolidate the curd and produce a slightly drier curd, but this is optional. I use just a bit of hand pressure to consolidate the cheese. Turn the curds as they drain and firm up. Doing this several times during the draining will keep the moisture even.
  8. The draining cheese should be placed in the refrigerator as soon as the whey drainage slows, but with a bowl underneath to collect the small amount of whey that continues to drain. Schiz should be used within a few days at most.

To cook, slice up and fry in a pan with butter and a pinch of salt. Cream can be added. Serve with polenta or wide cut pasta like Pappardelle.

4/25/17 – More info on the cheeses – One of the three cheeses got eaten in a class that was going on at Anja’s workshop. One of them was served at the House Capuchin Potluck on 4/9 (http://wp.me/p8ngGY-kZ) The last one went to All Fool’s Feast in Corvaria and got used in *that* potluck, where it got a lot of compliments. The only problem was the salting the curd as we were molding it, meant it didn’t get quite enough salt to be perfect in flavor, but the mix of spices was great. It also turned out that laying a slice on garlic-buttered bread and laying a thin slice of cheddar on top and then broiling it, turned it from “good” into a heavenly treat! ….so moar garlic, and salt are going into the next try.

4/6/17 – Cheese and Wine Workshop –

We started a little later than Anja had hoped, waiting for someone, but gradually setting up. Once the last person arrived we moved out to the front to snack a bit (the ladies brought cheese, bread, crackers and garlic jam!) and do the first part of things which needed to be what we were doing with the cheese.

Eventually we moved into the back, got the spices ready, poured in the milk and started and it took over 1 1/2 hours to get the stuff up to temperature! Or close enough that stuff would curdle, at least. The whey was still a bit milky, but not quite so much as last time. We think that it was the hotplate cutting in and out that made it take so long, but eventually it was frothing and we put in the vinegar. We used mustard, celery seed, home-grown caraway seed and garlics.

It curdled beautifully and with much more cheese than last time, leaving only about an 1/2 gallon of whey. It “broke” from the cheesecloth very cleanly, unlike the last batch when we had to do a lot of scraping. After letting it cool a bit, we packed the molds and weighted them and left it to stand overnight. One lady took home the frozen whey from the last batch and we got the next into the freezer. Anja unmolded and fridged the cheese Friday morning.

3/30/17 – Cheese and Wine Workshop – Our starters, rennet and citric acid arrived on Thursday. Also, Heather is back in Florence and was expressing interest. Anja and Loren started talking about trying to make one of the same variety as the last, but with an honest-to-goodness mold, instead of a box. …and for a mold they’re going to use a smooth-sided can and a reed coaster, with the lid of the can to set on top of the cheese and some of Anja’s lead “ducks”.


3/16/17 – Cheese and Wine Workshop – Loren and Anja were initially the only ones there for this, and then Amy got there as the cheese was being strained. Not sure whether folks forgot or missed the announcement, but we went ahead and started at 5:10. Anja had been grinding and measuring spices before that and getting pictures, but that’s when the milk went onto the burner. At about 5:50 it started to foam and Anja tossed in the vinegar and pulled it off the heat. At 6:15 it was in the cheesecloth and hanging up to drain. At about 7:15 Anja took it down and boxed it, pressing it down as though it were being molded and then stuck it into the fridge. The whey went back into the milk containers and was frozen. (Anja uses it for chowder base!)

Ingredients

Cooking

Straining

…and the next day.

The cheese turned out tasty, and wasn’t overly salty on Friday, although it *had* been on Thursday before the salt melted in. This kind of cheese doesn’t keep all that long and the salt will help keep it from going bad. the whey was awfully milky and Anja thinks it might not have been hot enough when the vinegar went in.

Anja and Loren are talking about how to make some molds, rather than buying them, since our quantities are going to be small. Molds that make cheeses like this one…. >>>>

February 25, 2017 – At Summits BA&S – A Norse Meal – cheese and butter (made by Rafny) (C)2017 Gwyn ap Llewellyn

At the Summits BA&S, Anja spent some time talking to Rafny Garunsdottir about the cheese that she entered as part of her Norse Meal (more about the event here: http://wp.me/p8ngGY-fy ) Her cheese had a larger curd than Anja was getting and it turned out that she was using non-homogenized milk, the only real difference. Rafny explained that the homogenization process deliberately breaks up the fat chains. That explains a *lot*! …and yes, that’s handmade butter, too!

Previous experiments can be found here and below:

A whole page of how-to – https://housecapuchin.wordpress.com/portfolio/scalded-milk-acid-farmers-cheese/

2/21/16 – A savory cheese – http://wp.me/p6tYq4-NZ

From 2/14/16 – http://wp.me/p6tYq4-Mr

Sweet cheese – Started heating at 1pm. Finally at temp 3:30 – Whey bottled and cheese hanging by 3:40 and boxed at 4:30.

Cheese: A Global History,  November 15, 2009, by Andrew Dalby,

  • Series: Edible
  • Hardcover: 128 pages
  • Publisher: Reaktion Books (November 15, 2009)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1861895232
  • ISBN-13: 978-1861895233

Home Cheese Making: Recipes for 75 Homemade Cheeses – October 14, 2002 by Ricki Carroll

  • Publisher: Storey Publishing, LLC; 3 edition (October 14, 2002)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1580174647
  • ISBN-13: 978-1580174640

One-Hour Cheese: Ricotta, Mozzarella, Chèvre, Paneer–Even Burrata. Fresh and Simple Cheeses You Can Make in an Hour or Less! – May 6, 2014 by Claudia Lucero  (Author)

  • Publisher: Workman Publishing Company (May 6, 2014)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0761177485
  • ISBN-13: 978-0761177487

Other books with cheese recipes on Gutenberg Project

  • The Compleat Cook, by Nath. Brook
  • The accomplisht cook, by Robert May 1685
  • The Queen-like Closet or Rich Cabinet, by Hannah Wolley 1672

Other pages on cheese:

divider black grey greek key

moving writing pen motifIn ministerio autem Somnium! Anja, graeca doctrina servus to House Capuchin
Page Originally Created 4/4/17 & Published 4/7/17 (C)M. Bartlett
Page Re-Published 4/25/20 (C)M. Bartlett
Last updated 6/12/21