Cheese?

The following was done previsouly to the post.



Cheese? Has anyone here ever made their own cheese.

Well we did. We bought 5 gallons of milk, 2 boxes of rennet and convinced ourselved that if nothing else this was going to be fun.



FYI: 99% of these stories are done with my friend, coleague, and fellow alumnus Brandon.



We started out very simple, an acidulated curd cheese.

This is when you will heat the milk inorder to parturize it and kill off an harmfull bacteria, and then add an acidic ingredient to your milk. This forced the cheese to curdle. Curdling is defined as: "Curd is a dairy product obtained by curdling (coagulating) milk with rennet or an edible acidic substance such as lemon juice or vinegar and then draining off the liquid portion (called whey)."



We used a very basic recipe, and ended up with disapointing results. The curd was too dry. (probably due in part to my agressive pressing methods)

For fun, and with little else to do with the cheese, we decided to treat it as one wouldif making feta, with a few changes. We chose to brine our cheese in a flavorful liquid for aprximately 8 minutes. This moistened the curd, and allowed some additional impartation of flavor.



Next we went a little more complicated. Farmes cheese.

we started out by making buttermilk, which is open for debate on the best way to make this. We did it by adding 1 oz of vinegar to 16oz of cold milk, and allowing it to culture at room temperature for several hours. Then refridgerating it overnight.

This time we added some additional flavors as well by infusing the milk with Black tea, Rosemary and Pineapple sage.

We cultured our buttermilk, added it to our cold milk, and began our cheese production.

The farmer's cheese had much smaller curds, which resulted in a springier, denser, texture. Something that we decided we liked.

We played with a variety of recipies, infusions and techniques until we developed a cheese which we like.
We also learned that our cheese does not melt, which gave us the idea of grilling our cheese much like the Greek cheese halloumi.

I would like to work with a cheddar culture next.
Hudson Valley cheddar cheese?


PLAY!!! Forget what your mother said when you were a child and play with your food.

Foodie Fun - CIA forrage

I have disigned this as an outlet. For myself, for my freinds and aquaintences and for anyone interested in food, fun, learning and education.

I am a cook. a chef. A jack of all trades; master of none. All I know if that food runs through my veins. I eat, sleep, dream and create food. I love it. Everything food I want to know more about.

I have recently accepted a job which does not allow me to cook anymore. As a result of this there is a HUGE void left in my life, one which I have filled with dinner parties, private catering and day dreaming of cooking again during otherwise boring management meetings.
This isn't about me, but it is written by me and will thus have my inflection.
I want to write about my travels, my experiences, and my day to day struggles with my current identity crisis.

To start off:

I live in the Hudson Valley and am subsequently very close to the CIA in Hyde Park.
I am a graduate myself, as are many of my friends. Long story short, anyone who has ever gone to the CIA, knows that summer vacation is 3 weeks, and always starts just before the 4th of July.
Yesterday was the last day of classes before the break, You can imagine how much food is leftover. It is given away to the students and faculty.

Well...
I had an opportunity to utilize some alumni privilages and made some collections myself.
Some wonderful Greuyer, and manchego cheeses.
House made salami's and hams, wild mushrooms, exotic herbs.
My refridgerator is currently a plethera of exotic and ottherwise expensive foods. I LOVE IT.

My first meal from my forrage was a simple Tuna wrap.
I carmelized some Shallots, grated some manchego and went to town.
The end result was a beautiful combination, of solid white albacore tuna salad, sweet and crunchy shallots, and a delightful creaminess of the Manchego.

It is an interesting, and non-traditional combination of flavors, ingredients and methods; however it did offer a delightful sandwich.

Recipie is as follows:
Solid white albacore tuna - 1 cn
Mayonaise - 1.5 oz
Relish - 1 Tb
Manchego cheese (grated) - 2 oz
Shallot - 2 oz
S+P - TT

1. Slice the shallots into 1/16" slices lengthwise
2. Carmelize the shallots in a very hot pan, with about .5 oz of oil.
3. Grate manchego cheese.
4. Incorporate all ingredients.

Enjoy.

More to come soon.