Making Chevre

I fantasize about things that may not be considered normal for a girl living in the middle of Los Angeles. I like to imagine starting each day by gathering eggs from backyard chickens, ending my weekly trips to the farmers’ market (even though I love them so) because I have every vegetable and fruit already growing in my backyard, and, as of late, having my own herd of goats. I’m a big fan of goat cheese, well any cheese really, but I love the tang of goat cheese that makes it the perfect addition to so many salads and the occasional savory or even sweet tart, so the idea of having my own herd and fresh goat milk available for cheese making sounds too good to be true. Since I still rent and have yet to acquire my own flock of chickens, I’ve resigned myself to the fact that the goats will have to wait. However, I recently discovered that the homemade cheese does not.

After a successful attempt at homemade ricotta, I started looking around for different cheeses that I could try my hand at in my own kitchen. It turns out that making goat cheese is a relatively simple process. Heat the goat milk, add the culture, let sit, drain, hang and let sit some more and that’s it! The active time needed is really only about 30 minutes and the taste is definitely worth the effort (allow two days for the sitting and hanging times needed). I really wasn’t prepared for the creaminess of the homemade chevre. I had to stop myself from eating the majority of it straight out of the bowl. You can salt and season to your liking, but so far, I’ve found the tart creaminess perfect as it is. I have enough that I may make an herbed version to serve with bread or to use as the cheese on a rustic pizza. Experiment with different flavors and let me know how it goes.

If you’re in the LA area, I got my chevre culture at Surfas. If you don’t have a good gourmet shop or restaurant supply store in your area, there are online sources including this one. I got my goat milk in one quart containers from Whole Foods.



Fresh Chevre

2 quarts pasteurized goat milk
1/2 packet of chevre culture meant for 1 gallon of milk
Lots and lots of cheesecloth
Twine

Heat the goat milk in a stainless steel pot to 86* and whisk in the chevre culture. Remove from heat and let sit at room temperature for 12 – 24 hours. I let mine sit for about 20 because I kept waiting for the curds to form. It turns out that hard curds will not form, but you will notice a much thicker, creamier texture to the milk. When you see that thickness, drain the milk in a colander lined with lots of cheesecloth set over a bowl. Rather than pouring the milk through the colander straight from the pan, use a ladle to gently pour it in. You may only be able to fit half the milk in at a time. That’s fine. You’ll hang the first batch before laying out more cheesecloth to drain the second.

After the milk has drained slightly and you see some whey collected in the bowl, gather the cheesecloth together and secure with twine (as shown in the picture above). Use the twine to hang the cheese where it can continue to drain for 10 hours. Do not try to rush the draining process, it takes time. Repeat until all the milk has been drained and is hanging. After 10 hours has passed, open up your cheesecloth packets to find creamy, tart, fresh (!) goat cheese. Salt and season to taste or use as is.

Minted Fettuccine with Petite Pea Dressing

One thing I have come to expect in cooking is that not all of my experiments will turn out favorably. If you’ve been cooking for a little while and are comfortable trying different things and not using recipes, then you also know this to be true. That is why, when a dish turns out right and tastes delicious on the first try, I am always so pleasantly surprised.

I’d been craving goat cheese, peas and mint in a pasta filling for some time and was just waiting for the mint in the backyard that seeds itself each year to spring back into action (pun intended). I harvested the first good sprigs last week and was finally ready to get to work. By then, I wasn’t feeling the filled pasta anymore so I processed some of the mint with the flour for the pasta dough to make minted fettuccine. Instead of a pasta filling I used the peas, goat cheese and mint along with minced shallot, fennel pollen and egg to make a quick dressing that would cook from the heat of the drained pasta when the dish was tossed together. For good measure I sautéed some pancetta and mushrooms to throw in at the end for a little substance.

There was enough of this dish to easily feed two, but it only fed one (me) and was eaten very quickly (read inhaled). It was quickly added to my list of spring staples and it didn’t come from a recipe so don’t think you have to stick to this one. Scallions or spring onions would be delicious in place of the shallot and you could just as easily sub in ricotta for goat cheese and so on.

Are you planning a big Easter meal this weekend? Or perhaps you’ve just finished all of the cooking for your Seder? I am letting myself off the hook this year. The honey baked ham is already ordered and with the addition of some oven baked asparagus and rolls, Easter dinner is served. If you do want to do some cooking this weekend, this pasta is a great way to acknowledge the flavors of spring without putting forth too much effort. Yes I make the pasta from scratch, but if you have a Cuisinart and a pasta machine (even easier with the KitchenAid pasta attachment) then that really isn’t a difficult task.

Minted Fettuccine with Petite Pea Dressing
Serves 2 (in theory)

Pasta
Leaves from 2 sprigs of mint
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 t salt
1 1/2 t olive oil
2 eggs

Place the flour and salt in a food processor with the mint leaves and blend until the mint is minced and well incorporated. Add the olive oil and eggs and process until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl and forms a ball. Flatten dough into a disc about 4 inches across, wrap with plastic wrap and let sit for at least 30 minutes. Process according to your pasta maker directions, using the fettuccine attachment to cut the pasta.

Dressing
8 oz (half bag) of frozen petite peas
4 oz goat cheese
1 small shallot
1 – 2 t fennel pollen
Leaves from 1 sprig of mint
Salt and pepper to taste
1 egg

Place all the ingredients aside from the egg in a food processor or blender and process until smooth. Taste and adjust seasoning, then add the egg and process until incorporated.

Finishing the dish
1 t olive oil
1/3 cup cubed pancetta
1 cup sliced mushrooms

Bring a large, salted pot of water to a boil. While the water is heating, place the oil in a pan over medium heat. Add the pancetta and cook for 2 – 3 minutes before adding the mushrooms. Continue cooking until the mushrooms are soft and set aside.

Cook the pasta and begin to check for doneness after just 2 minutes. Fresh pasta cooks much faster than dried. When fully cooked, drain and return to the pot along with the dressing and the mushroom mixture. Toss well until the sauce is warmed through and serve.

Buratta Sundae

"A dessert without cheese is like a beautiful woman with only one eye." - Brillat-Savarin

I have never started a post with a quote, but I thought it appropriate in this situation as it was this quote that led to the discovery of my new favorite dessert that really isn’t a dessert at all, but should be. Let me explain.

While visiting a dear friend in New Mexico recently, we consumed an exorbitant amount of an unbelievable cheese called Brillat-Savarin. Upon my return to Los Angeles, I embarked on a mission to find it and buy more of it immediately. It was that good. The first stop was Dean & Deluca’s site where I knew the cheese had been ordered as a birthday gift for my friend (and yes, I try to only surround myself with people who love cheese as much as I do). Unfortunately, it is sold as part of a $90 set that included two cheeses I did not want. A quick google search revealed that the cheese is in fact named for Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin who authored the book, The Physiology of Taste, which is familiar to American foodies because it was translated into English by M.F.K. Fisher. Spurred on by the discovery that this cheese really is something special and has a great back story, I contacted my cheese dealer and learned that they do not carry Brillat-Savarin at this time. Somewhat disappointed, I shared the quote I had found while researching Jean Anthelme and we began discussing cheese as dessert. It was at this point that David shared with me an idea so brilliant, I am truly and completely disappointed I did not think of it myself.

David is extremely creative with uses for cheese so it never surprises me when he comes up with great pairings and new ideas, but this was truly something spectacular. Burrata is a wonderfully creamy cheese made of mozarella and cream that unfortunately, has a very short shelf life. That means when it comes in, David has to move it quickly. In order to show customers another way to use burrata, David came up with Burrata Sundaes. He uses burrata as the base of a “sundae” that subs in pink peppercorns and chives for the sprinkles and aged balsamic for the chocolate sauce. I could picture the flecks of pink and green as he described the dish and being a die-hard fan of burrata, I knew I had to make this at home. David let me know when the next shipment of burrata was coming in and I set a calendar reminder to get over to Surfas before they sold out.



I think I can safely say that Burrata Sundaes are the new favorite dish of everyone I served them to at the BBQ I hosted this past weekend. Totally unexpected and novel this makes great party food. Or, if you’re like me, it also makes great, “eat at home while no one is looking so you don’t have to share even one morsel of it” food.

Burrata Sundaes
This served 5 of us as a dessert, but I could have eaten all of it myself

1 16 oz container burrata
1 T freshly-cracked pink peppercorns
2 T finely chopped chives
1 T Spanish olive oil (or fruity, low acidity olive oil of your choice)
2 T aged balsamic vinegar (preferably Surfas’s balsamic with blackberries and ginger)

Use a small ice cream scoop to fashion burrata scoops resembling ice cream. Place 2 – 3 scoops in each bowl depending on the size of your scoop. Drizzle just a few drops of olive oil over the top of each scoop. Scatter the peppercorns and chives over each sundae and finish with a generous drizzle of vinegar so it looks as though you have chocolate sauce running down the sides. Warn your guests, or don’t, about the curious nature of the dessert coming their way.

Olive Oil Cake

The first time I grasped the fact that all olive oils aren’t created equal, I was sitting in the back office of the public relations agency where I worked, taking part in an olive oil tasting. We had just landed a new California olive oil company as a client and the owner was taking us through a tasting to point out the significant differences between oils. While up until this point I had been entirely happy to use cheap brands found in every grocery store, after having sipped a tiny bit of the stuff (yes you’re supposed to sip olive oil during a tasting), I swore it off for good. It was rancid. It would have been clear to the most unsophisticated palette that it was rancid and our taste test director assured us the bottle had just been purchased that morning.

The test went on and we were able to recognize the differences between the good oils as well. Some were fruity, some were peppery with an almost spicy finish felt just at the back of your throat and my favorite was a bright grassy one that luckily belonged to my new client. I was thrilled with my education on what had just hours before seemed a most basic and somewhat boring ingredient. Little did I know the bill I would run up in years to come as I sought out distinctive bottles of oil with varying characteristics.

Don’t think I’m suggesting that you must spend lots of money in order to have a nice olive oil. My standby, use-in-everything-oil, is the California Estate Olive Oil from Trader Joe’s. It costs just under six dollars. I save the more expensive oils for finishing dishes and salad dressings where I know the flavor will be most prominent. If you’re interested in learning more about California olive oils, visit the California Olive Oil Commission. You’ll find a wealth of information including locations in California where you can visit producers and have your own olive oil tasting.

Since I’ve developed this appreciation for olive oil I took note when recipes for olive oil cakes started showing up in a number of places. A few weeks ago it came up again when Melissa Clark wrote about her olive oil cake in the New York Times. I clipped the article and decided it was finally time to try my hand at one. The opportunity presented itself last weekend when my father was in town visiting for the wedding of a family friend. We needed a quick pick me up before the wedding and this, along with a pot of PG Tips, was the perfect solution. I would recommend eating this cake the same day you make it. It did not have the same delicious flavor the next day. It may have been my imagination, but it tasted as though the oil was off. Don’t let that deter you. It really was delicious the first day it was made.



Blood Orange Olive Oil Cake
From Melissa Clark in The New York Times

3 blood oranges
1 cup sugar
1/3 – 1/2 cup buttermilk
3 eggs
1 3/4 cups flour
1 1/2 t baking powder
1/4 t baking soda
1/4 t salt
2/3 cup extra virgin olive oil

Preheat oven to 350*
Grease a loaf pan (mine was 9-by-4). Grate the zest from two of the blood oranges into a medium bowl. Add the sugar to the zest and rub together until the zest is well incorporated and the mixture resembles damp sand. Supreme the zested oranges (Clark gives great instructions for this in the New York Times article). Break up the resulting orange segments into small pieces in a bowl. Go small - I did not go small enough. Clark suggests 1/4" pieces. Mine were probably closer to 1/2" so make sure you follow her suggestion.

Juice the remaining orange into a glass measuring cup and then add enough buttermilk to bring the liquid to 2/3 cup. Add the liquid to the sugar mixture and then whisk in the eggs. In another bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt) and gently add them to the wet ingredients. Use a spatula to fold in the olive oil, a little bit at a time. Fold in the orange pieces and pour the mixture into your prepared loaf pan.

Bake the cake for 55 minutes (I started checking mine after 45 and it needed the full cooking time). Let the cake cool slightly in the pan and then unmold onto a cooling rack to cool completely before serving.

Pissaladiere

I read recipes frequently enough that by now, I usually know immediately if I want to make the dish. Often I’m drawn in by a picture and I know visually, the dish will be stunning. Then there are the times where the ingredients sound so perfect together that I just can’t wait to dive in, often being able to taste the flavors just from my imagination. When I get both of these reactions to the same recipe, I’m on my way to the market as soon as possible for supplies. Recently, I read a recipe for pissaladiere and almost immediately found myself at the Whole Foods olive bar.

The technical definition of pissaladiere describes a pizza without cheese or tomato sauce, made up of sautéed onions, olives and anchovies. This dish dates back to the time of the Romans and while it may have originated as a pizza-like creation, it has since evolved into more of a tart. Of course, the star ingredients, olives, anchovies and sautéed onions, still come into play. The recipe I found used puff pastry as a base – one of my favorite starts to a tart, both for it’s simplicity of preparation and indulgent flavor. I knew the crisscross pattern of anchovies would make a beautiful photo and the sweet flavor of the caramelized onions would match beautifully with the salty, savory bite of the anchovies and olives.

That salty sweet combination is habit forming in my house and true to form, the majority of the pissaladiere was inhaled within minutes of being cool enough to eat. I was concerned with overwhelming the boyfriend’s palate with too much anchovy so I used fewer filets than called for and cut them in half lengthwise. I had enough anchovies for the pattern on the tart, but was able to reduce the strength of their pungent flavor. It seemed perfectly balanced to me (an anchovy fan) and I would recommend taking this route to all but the most dedicated devotees. And by the way, if you don’t count yourself as a fan, try this recipe anyway with the smaller amount of anchovies. I think you’ll find you like the salty contrast.

Pissaladiere
Serves four as a lunch dish or eight as an appetizer

1 sheet puff pastry, thawed
1/3 cup olive oil
2 1/4 pounds of onions (about four medium)
2 T sun dried tomato paste or sun dried tomato bruschetta
1 – 2 T red wine vinegar
1/2 t salt
2 t sugar
1 egg yolk whisked with 1 t water
2/3 cup olive tapenade
2 t fresh thyme leaves + additional sprigs for garnishing
3.5 oz jar of good quality anchovies (about 12 – 15 filets)
15 – 20 pitted nicoise olives

Peel onions, cut in half and slice thinly. Warm oil in a large, heavy sauté pan over medium low heat. Add onions, sun dried tomato paste, 1 T of vinegar, salt and sugar to the pan. Sauté until onions are tender and begin to caramelize, about an hour to an hour and 15 minutes. Only stir the onions every 10 minutes or so, just to keep them from sticking to the bottom of the pan. When finished cooking, taste the onions and add the additional 1 T vinegar, if desired. I did not desire.

About 20 minutes before the onions are finished, preheat the oven to 400*. Place the thawed puff pastry on a baking sheet covered in parchment paper or a silpat. Score a 3/4 inch border around the pastry and chill for 10 minutes. Spread the tapenade over the puff pastry, inside the scored border. If your tapenade is chunky like mine was, the pastry won’t be fully covered. Just make sure it’s relatively evenly distributed and sprinkle with thyme leaves. When the onions are sufficiently caramelized spread them evenly over the tapenade.

Drain anchovies and slice them in half lengthwise. Lay them over the onions in a crisscross pattern as shown in the picture above. Place one olive in the center of each diamond area created by the anchovies. Brush egg wash lightly over the border area. Bake the pissaladiere for 10 minutes, then reduce the heat to 350* and cook for an additional 10 – 15 minutes until the border is golden and flaky and the crust is cooked through. Scatter thyme sprigs over the tart if desired and let cool slightly before slicing.

Yogurt Panna Cotta

Unless you count the odd batch of Jell-O growing up, I haven’t done much cooking with gelatine. It’s not that I have anything against the substance or the wobbly forms created by it; I just have not been drawn to recipes that call for it. That is until I came across a recipe for vanilla yogurt panna cottas in a recent issue of Delicious. The recipe called for some of my favorites: Greek yogurt and vanilla bean paste (truth be told it calls for real deal vanilla beans, but I knew the paste would work great) and if it meant I would have to run out for a rather unfamiliar ingredient – gelatine, that would make it all the more fun of an experiment.

This dessert was easy to make and turned out perfectly. In fact, the most challenging task was finding a good mold for the panna cottas. After a trip to Sur la Table and a number of internet searches turned up nothing, I ended up with a silicone muffin tin that provided the flat bottom and slightly rounded sides I was looking for. This turned out to be less than ideal for unmolding the desserts since I couldn’t unmold each one individually. If you can track down shallow, individual molds with the rounded sides and flat bottom, by all means use them and please tell me where you found them!

Since these desserts are so simple and use ingredients that I almost always have on hand (even gelatine now that I’ve stocked up on envelopes), they would make a great last minute end to a fabulous meal if it weren’t for their necessary four hour chilling time. Be sure to start these early in the day so you have ample time for them to set.

Now that I’ve had success with gelatine and gotten to enjoy the slightly firm little wobbly desserts that it can create, I think I’m hooked. After all, it really is one of the earliest forms of molecular gastronomy. Don’t you think?

Yogurt Panna Cotta

Makes 6 - 8 (depending on size of molds)

1 envelope gelatine

1 1/4 cups milk

1 1/4 cups heavy cream

1/2 cup sugar

1 1/2 T vanilla bean paste

3/4 cup Greek yogurt

Dissolve the gelatine in 1/4 cup of the milk. Place the remaining milk, cream, sugar and vanilla in a medium sauce pan and bring to a simmer. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the milk with the dissolved gelatine. Strain the mixture through a fine mesh sieve and cool to room temperature. Whisk in the yogurt. Divide the mixture between your 6 molds (or more if you have additional liquid) and chill for at least four hours. Dip the molds in hot water briefly before unmolding to help the panna cotta slip out. Serve with fresh fruit.

First Day of Spring

Welcome spring! The first day of spring is one of my favorite times of year. There are certainly moments I treasure more, like when I bite into the season’s first homegrown tomato or the first really warm Saturday where you can host a BBQ and not need to put your sweater on, even after the sun has set. But there is something about the anticipation that comes with the first day of spring that is unmatched in any other season. This weekend, I will be setting out some of the seedlings that I started indoors almost six weeks ago and next weekend it will be time to head to the annual Tomatomania festival held in various different parts of Los Angeles. With more than 200 heirloom tomato seedlings to choose from, I’m sure to get some beauties for the summer.

So, with all the anticipation of the season to come, I decided to mark the first day of spring with a meal that highlights some of the season’s greatest offerings. Traditionally, eggs symbolize the rebirth of spring. It’s why we spend hours decorating and hiding eggs on Easter. Some argue, including Russ Parsons in his book, How to Pick a Peach, that asparagus might be a more fitting representation; certainly, there are legions of asparagus fans who would agree. After all, asparagus is one of the first spring vegetables you’ll find at the farmers’ market, even before the season has officially begun. Finally, there is no arguing with the lamb that graces many a springtime table. I knew if I could put all of these ingredients on the same plate, I would have a fail-proof first meal of spring.

The lamb and asparagus were easy. I think simple cooking is best with fresh wonderful ingredients; all either needed was a bit of oil and salt and pepper before roasting. To incorporate the egg, I did a very simplified version of a mimosa dressing by just barely taking the eggs to hard boiled and then dicing them to top the roasted asparagus.



Spring Dinner for Two

1 frenched rack of lamb (about 1 – 1 1/2 pounds)
1 bunch asparagus
2 eggs
8 thyme sprigs
Olive oil (about 3 – 4 T)
Salt and pepper to taste

For the lamb:
Preheat oven to 425*
Allow lamb to come to room temperature. Place in a baking dish large enough to hold the rack and drizzle or rub with olive oil. Sprinkle with salt and freshly cracked pepper. Remove leaves from half of the thyme sprigs and sprinkle over the lamb along with two whole thyme sprigs (reserve additional thyme for the asparagus). Place in the oven and roast for 15 – 18 minutes for medium rare. Allow the lamb to sit, tented with tin foil, for 10 minutes before cutting and serving.



For the asparagus:
Break off by hand or cut off the bottom woody stem of the asparagus. Use a vegetable peeler to remove the tough outer skin. Peel from about an inch or two below the tip to the base. Toss asparagus with a little olive oil. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and the leaves from the remaining two thyme sprigs. Roast in the same oven as the lamb for 15 – 20 minutes until just starting to soften.

For the eggs:
Place eggs in a small pot of cool water and bring to a gentle boil. Allow the water to boil for 4 minutes and remove from heat. Let the eggs sit in the hot water for about five minutes more. Rinse under cool water until eggs reach room temperature, then peel.

To serve:
Place 3 – 4 lamb pieces on each plate. Place 4 – 6 asparagus next to the lamb. Roughly chop the egg yolks, reserving the whites for another purpose. Sprinkle the egg over the asparagus and serve.

Buttermilk Cinnamon Bread

Spring is clearly right around the corner. It’s touted on the cover of my March and April foodie mags, apparent in the changing selection at my Farmers’ Market and obvious with the quickly approaching spring planting season. However, it is most definitely not clear in the weather right now in Southern California. After an unseasonably warm January and February (we had weeks in the 80s), it has been quite cold (relative I know) as of late. This is made all the more unbearable by the expectation that spring and its warm, sunny days should be on the way.

Baking bread is the most comforting thing I have found to take the chill off on these cold, weekend afternoons. The warmth of the oven does double time with my heater to give the house a nice toasty feeling, the smell that fills the kitchen as the bread is almost finished warms the senses and you just can’t beat the taste and feeling of freshly baked bread as you rip it apart with your hands and take down a whole loaf in one sitting.

Since I received the book, Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, for Christmas this year, a day hasn’t gone by that I don’t have bread dough sitting in my fridge. As soon as one batch is used up, I mix the next batch, right in the same container. I’ve recently gained the confidence to move on from the master recipe and start experimenting with what the rest of the book has to offer. I had some buttermilk to use up after making my cornbread madeleines and decided to put it to use with the buttermilk dough recipe in the book. After mixing and letting the dough rise, I took a look at the recipes that are recommended for the buttermilk bread. As soon as I saw it I knew, without a doubt, that I had to make the cinnamon raisin bread. The only thing better than fresh-baked bread to warm up a chilly afternoon is sweet, fresh-baked bread with a gooey center.

Buttermilk Bread Dough
Adapted from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day
(Cinnamon Raisin Bread Directions Included Below)

2 cups lukewarm water (between 100* and 110*)
1 cup lukewarm buttermilk (between 100* and 110*)
1 1/2 T yeast
1 1/2 T salt
1 1/2 T sugar
6 1/2 cups unbleached all purpose flour (I use 6 1/4 of King Arthur which has a higher protein content and makes the reduction in amount necessary)

Mix the water and buttermilk together, making sure that they are between 100 and 110 degrees. Whisk in the salt and sugar, then sprinkle the yeast on top, letting it develop (get a little foamy) for a few minutes. Pour the yeast mixture into a large bowl or your stand mixer and mix in all of the flour in one addition. You do not have to knead the bread, but use a wooden spoon (or dough hook if you’re using your stand mixer) to make sure the flour is thoroughly incorporated. Place the container in a warm place with a loose fitting cover and let rise for two hours. After the dough has risen you are ready to bake, but the authors recommend letting it chill in the fridge first to make the dough easier to work with.



Cinnamon Raisin Bread
Adapted from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day
Filling amounts are for one loaf of Buttermilk Bread

1 1/2 pounds of buttermilk bread dough
1 1/2 t ground cinnamon
3/4 cup sugar (book suggests 1/3 cup)
3/4 cup golden raisins, chopped (I left these out for lack of raisins in the house)
1 egg beaten with a little water for egg wash
Butter for the pan

Butter a 9” x 4” bread pan and set aside. Roll out the dough (as shown below) to a rectangle approximately 18” long and as wide as the bread pan you are going to use is long (approximately 9”). If the dough is not stretching well, let it rest for 10 minutes and continue to roll. Mix the cinnamon, sugar and raisins together. Brush the egg wash over the surface of dough and sprinkle the sugar and raisin mixture evenly over the egg wash. Roll the dough up, using a bit of egg wash to seal up the ends and the seam. Place the roll in your bread pan and let sit in a warm place for at least an hour and as much as an hour and 45 minutes. 20 minutes before baking, heat your oven to 375 degrees. Bake the bread for 35 – 40 minutes until nice and golden on the outside. Let cool slightly before serving so the hot sugar mixture doesn't run out everywhere.