Thursday, October 27, 2011

Cider





Farmhouse Cheddar Part 6: Waxing




Farmhouse Cheddar Part 5: Pressing

Break-up the curd. Walnut sized chunks.
Into the cheesecloth lined press.


Set up the pressure spring.


Press out that whey.

Farmhouse Cheddar Part 4: A Tablespoon of Bonus Ricotta

You save that whey?
Good, you get a tablespoon of ricotta for free!

Farmhouse Cheddar Part 3: Separating Curds from Whey


Warming the curd slowly in a sink of hot water

Curd has shrunk, look at all that whey.


Poured through a colander lined with cheesecloth. Save that whey. 


Tie it up, and hang.




Farmhouse Cheddar Part 2: Ripening & Cutting the Curd

Farmhouse cheddar is our first hard cheese. It takes a month to age, so it ought to be ready for Thanksgiving!


We used Ricki Carroll's recipe (ours is a half batch), she seems to be the the most used by home cheese makers (and also runs cheesemaking.com, the site we ordered wax from).

First and most important: buy the right milk. Ultra-Pasteurized can only make ricotta, and its not always clearly marked (we tried whole foods milk last week and ended up with a mess). Luckily, C-Town, of all places sells local milk, for $1 more per gallon then regular, and it's worked for us twice. Be careful. 

Begin by warming the milk to 90 degrees, add the 1/2 packet/tab mesophilic starter and let ripen for 45 minutes. We bought our starter at the Brooklyn Kitchen, down the block, you might have to order it. The good news is that you can keep it alive and really only need to order it once if you are diligent, we are planning to buy a new one for each batch (there are enough things growing in our apartment already).

Warming the milk and letting it ripen.
After the milk has ripened, add 1/4 teaspoon of the rennet (already diluted in cold un-chlorinated water), stir for a minute, then let sit for 45 more minutes. Lots of waiting.

Next, cut the curd into small cubes. This is cool, the trick is to cut at a 45 degrees angle, in both directions, then rotate the curd (so you are cutting perpendicularly to the last cuts) and repeat. If you did it right you'll end up with small cubes all balancing one one point, it's a fun geometry project.



Cutting the curd, it's completely solid like jello.

Farmhouse Cheddar Part 1: New Tool

Cheap Cheese Press - purchased from eBay

New Contributor - My Dad

Meet Bill Keegan

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Pumpkin Mofongo

Pumpkin Mofongo

The book SuperFoods (Steven Pratt and Kathy Matthews, Harper, 2005) identifies pumpkin as one of the “fourteen foods that will change your life.” Having abandoned white potatoes and white rice because they contribute to weight gain and lack essential nutrients, we started looking for alternative side dishes. When we looked for pumpkin recipes we found that most were for some sort of desert (pie, cookies, etc.). We had success in adding half a can of pumpkin to spicy spaghetti sauce, but lacked a more stand-alone use. One of my favorite foods, after working in the Caribbean for more than 30 years, is the traditional Spanish Caribbean dish called “mofongo.” Mofongo is essentially fried and mashed green plantains. Because pumpkin has a similar texture and sweetness to plantains, and because this is pumpkin season, we decided to create pumpkin mofongo. This also produced the ingredients for a tasty and nutritious desert. Here is our recipe:

Ingredients:

· 1 medium (organic) pumpkin

· 1 teaspoon salt

· 4 cups water

· 4 garlic cloves

· 1 tablespoon olive oil

· Bacon bits or pieces (prepared bacon, available in various brands, is easiest)

Directions:

1. Peel the pumpkin and slice it in half. Remove the seeds and stringy interior and save.

2. Cut the pumpkin into eights. [At this point any remaining “strings” can easily be scraped away with a sharp knife.] Cut these eights into one-inch cubes. Soak the pumpkin cubes in the salt and water for about 15 minutes, and drain well.

3. While the pumpkin is soaking, crush the garlic cloves in a wooden mortar (called a “pilon” in Puerto Rico), sprinkle with salt, and then add a tbsp of olive oil after you have started crushing (the oil makes the garlic slippery and more difficult to crush). [You can crush the garlic in a press, but scrape the remainder from the inside of the press.] Transfer the crushed garlic and oil to a small bowl.

4. Fry the pumpkin cubes in oil until they are golden brown. [You can use a deep fryer if you have one, which takes about 3 minutes.] Drain the excess oil on a paper towel.

5. Crush a portion of the fried pumpkin in the mortar. Add about a teaspoon of the garlic and oil, and a teaspoon of bacon bits (optional), and continue crushing. We use a one-cup mortar that will accommodate about 1/8th of the pumpkin at a time. [Note: you could use a potato masher, but you want to be gentle. The goal is to preserve the texture created by frying the pumpkin, and not the consistency of mashed potatoes.]

6. Spoon the mixture onto a baking sheet coated with cooking spray, and shape into mounds. After you have mashed all the pumpkin and formed it into mounds, keep it warm in the oven (300 degrees) until ready to serve. You can also pour a little chicken or vegetable broth on the mounds to keep them moist, but this is only necessary if they will be sitting in the oven for a while.

I have included lots of pointers, but the recipe is no more difficult than garlic mashed potatoes (and takes about the same amount of time).

Pumpkin Seed Desert

Pumpkin seeds are a very nutritious snack. In fact, Native American groups grew pumpkin and a variety of other gourds for their seeds, and not the flesh. I got the spice ingredients from a web page, but you can substitute spices according to your taste (this one is a bit sweet).

1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees.

2. Separate the seeds from the fibers and rinse. Spray a baking sheet with a cooking spray, and place the seeds in a single layer on the baking sheet. Spray the seeds with cooking spray and salt to taste. Bake the seeds in the preheated oven until lightly brown (about 20 to 25 minutes).

3. While the seeds are baking, mix 3 tbs brown sugar, ¼ tsp cumin, ¼ tsp ground cinnamon, ¼ tsp ground ginger, and ¼ tsp cayenne pepper in a bowl.

4. Heat 1 tbs olive oil and 2 tbs brown sugar in a skillet over medium heat. When the sugar has melted add the toasted pumpkin seeds and cook until they are coated. Add the carmelized seeds to the spice mixture and toss to coat. Cool and eat!