Cookbook Love: Farmette’s Farmer’s Cheese

Check out my new love.

Isn’t she lovely? 

I adore so many things about this book I don’t even know where to begin.  I suppose the logical place would be with the author’s story of going from living in the U.S. with a career in broadcast production to starting all over on her husband’s family dairy farm in the southwest of Ireland. As she describes it herself on her blog, she is “finding my way around an Irish kitchen and becoming a bonafide cook in a world where traditional trumps quick or convenient.” Her book, The Farmette Cookbook is part novel, part recipe and DIY how-to book and an absolute delight to read from cover-to-cover.  The book features a varied and interesting set of recipes from the very simple Farmer’s Cheese (below), to classics such as Classic Colcannon, holiday worthy like Little Christmas Roast Duck with Tarragon-Leek Bread Stuffing, and finally, the completely unexpected, such as Wild Garlic and Soft Irish Cheese Tamales.  I love the author’s take on Irish food products and traditions and her respect for time-honored Irish kitchen skills as well as the high quality ingredients she has access to on the farm.  The Farmette Cookbook took me far away from my own life and kitchen in the best way as I imagined myself making fresh cheese on an Irish dairy farm.  For now my new farmehouse dining table (my other new love) will have to suffice.

Farmer’s Cheese from the Farmette Cookbook by Imen McDonnell

According to the book, the author learned to make this cheese at a food festival in an ecovillage in County Tipperary.

Makes 2 cups

1 gallon whole milk

½ cup white vinegar

2 teaspoons fine sea salt

1. Line a colander with a double layer of cheesecloth.  

2. Pour the milk into a large, heavy bottomed saucepan, and bring to a boil over medium heat. Stir frequently to keep the milk from scorching.  When it comes to a boil, immediately reduce the heat to low, and stir in the vinegar. The milk should immediately separate into curds and whey.  If it does not separate, add a little bit more vinegar, 1 tablespoon at a time, until you see the milk solids coagulate into curds swimming in greenish-blue whey.

3. Pour the curds and whey into the lined colander.  Rinse gently with cool water and sprinkle the curds with salt.  Tie up the cheesecloth and press it a bit with your hands to remove any excess whey. Let the cheesecloth hang for 1 to 2 hours; open it, remove the cheese and chop coarsley.  Transfer and store in an airtight container.

Once you pour in the vinegar, the mixture separates into curds and whey.

Curds, draining.

Hanging.

Voilà!

This cheese will last up to a week in the refrigerator.

I had to eat some immediately, with fruit, almonds, sea salt and agave nectar. 

I’m super boring and eat the same breakfast almost every single day. Toasted brown bread topped with preserves, ricotta cheese and almonds. So I’ll be using this in place of the ricotta - a small but welcomed (and delicious) deviation.  Yep, I was doing “toast” before it became trendy. 

If you aren’t on the toast bandwagon, you could use this cheese in a million other ways:

Fold in chopped herbs and some olive oil and serve with bread, crackers, olives and cured meats as part of an appetizer plate.

To finish a pizza just as it comes out of the oven.  Just dollop some on each slice and add a drizzle of olive oil and some sea salt.

In summer pasta dishes.  I’m thinking bacon, corn and kale pasta with fresh herbs and grape tomatoes.

Enjoy!


 

Dinner in Minutes: Salmon with Capers and Dill

I get really excited when I find a recipe that contains nothing but ingredients that I always have around. Even more so when the recipe is quick enough to make on a weeknight - which for me, means it has to be super-quick. I have to confess that I miss taking more time to make dinner and not feeling rushed, but “the days are long and the years are short” so I know that dinner won’t always look and feel like an episode of “Chopped”.  For now, dinnertime is a whirlwind and recipes like this one save the day.  The prep (i.e . getting the ingredients out of your fridge/cupboard) takes less than 5 minutes, and the cooking times in the recipe were spot on for me.  Paired with broiled zucchini, a lentil salad that I made earlier in the week and rice made in my programmable rice cooker (I set it in the morning and rice is ready by dinner - yay!) the entire meal took only 15 minutes to prepare from start to finish.  Clean up was a breeze.

I’ll be making this again and again. I think it’s worth noting that Rachel Allen doesn’t mention the suddenly ubiquitous “brown butter” anywhere in the recipe.  I assure you the butter the salmon cooks in turns an irresistible and nutty tasting brown but no buzz words are needed to sell this recipe.  

Salmon with Capers and Dill

From Rachel's Irish Family Food: 120 Classic Recipes from My Home to Yours by Rachel Allen.

4 tablespoons butter, diced

4 salmon fillets (with the skin left on, if you wish)

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

4 tablespoons capers, drained and rinsed

2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice mixed with 6 to 8 tablespoons water

4 teaspoons chopped fresh dill (I used 3 teaspoons dried dill)

10 minutes until dinner. Seriously.

Place a frying pan over medium-high heat. When it is hot, add a couple of pats of butter, very quickly followed by the salmon, with the skin side down. Fry for 3 to 4 minutes, until golden brown underneath. Turn over, season with salt and pepper, and fry for another couple of minutes, or until the fish is just cooked through. (The timing will depend on the thickness of the salmon fillets and heat of the pan.)

Crispy skin and all that lovely brown butter. I wish you could smell this. 

Add the capers, along with the remaining butter, and lemon juice mixture and boil for 1 minute. Season to taste, adding more lemon juice or water, if necessary. Transfer the salmon onto warmed plates, stir the chopped dill into the sauce, and pour over the fish to serve.

Knives down!

Birthday Cake, Breakfast Cake: Upsidedown Cake from Rachel Allen's Favorite Food at Home

This weekend we are celebrating my birthday.  I’m not one to get too excited about my upcoming birthdays.  Most of the time I forget about my birthday, or I would, if not for my mother who always sends me the most thoughtful gifts and tells me my birth story each and every year (and no, I never get tired of hearing it).  This year is a little different however, because my son, Emmett who is three now LOVES birthdays. He’s been excited about mine for weeks.  To him, birthdays mean CAKE and I cannot let him down.

The fact is, not only am I not a “birthday person” but I’m not really a “birthday cake person” either.  Don’t get me wrong, I love sweets as much as the next person but in terms of cakes, I’m much more of an afternoon tea or a breakfast cake eater than a dessert cake type.  I am drawn to cakes that are moist, fruity and tart, the kind you could imagine having for breakfast with a cup of tea or coffee.

So, in selecting my birthday cake this year I knew the following:

#1 – I could not forgo cake because, Emmett

#2 – I wanted something in the vein of a “breakfast cake”; and

#3 – after a long Chicago winter and a not very spring-like spring, I wanted something bright, something that would remind me that we are on the precipice of longer, warmer days.

Somehow I knew that Rachel Allen would not let me down.  I picked up her fantastic cookbook “Favorite Food at Home” and sure enough, it had just what I was looking for.  First, I noticed a Plum and Rhubarb Crisp that is exactly MY kind of dessert, but unfortunately, not a cake (see #1 above).  So the final decision ended up being between Sponge Cake with Rhubarb Cream and Upsidedown Rhubarb and Ginger Cake.  Talk about a tough decision.  Well, until, I thought to whip up some Bird’s custard to spoon on top of each piece of the Upsidedown Cake.  Did I mention that I am definitely a “custard person”?  That’s when I knew this had to be my breakfast-birthday cake this year.  

You know what they say about the best laid plans right?  Well, all three of my birthday choices involved rhubarb (which I thought was a safe bet because it is supposed to be rhubarb season), but when I went shopping there was no rhubarb to be found anywhere. Disgruntled but not defeated I decided to find a replacement for the rhubarb but nothing seemed right. After much deliberation and in spite of #3 above, I finally settled on cranberries. Despite their complete lack of seasonality, in terms of taste, I thought they would make the best stand in and I wasn’t wrong.

This cake is both sweet and tart with a terrific texture – moist cake topped with soft pieces of cooked down fruit and crisp bits of caramelized sugar tucked in around the edges of the berries. It really needs no accompaniment. Rachel Allen suggests topping it with fresh whipped cream which sounds amazing. Emmett wanted his with ice cream, also a solid choice. But I am a custard girl through and through.

Because Paul is only selectively fond of ginger (i.e. gingersnaps and gingerbread) I replaced the ginger with some vanilla bean paste and lemon zest.  I also used a cake pan because my cast iron skillet is enormous.  So I melted the butter on the stovetop, added the brown sugar and cranberries and poured the whole mixture into the cake pan instead of doing it in a skillet. It was birthday perfection and even better the next morning with a big dollop of greek yogurt (or more custard, I won’t tell if you won’t) and a cup of tea. You can bet I will be baking this again with rhubarb as soon as I can get my hands on some.

A Cranberry Cake adapted from Upside-Down Rhubarb and Ginger Cake

from Rachel Allen's "Favorite Food at Home."

Makes:  8 servings

Ingredients:

4 tablespoons (½ stick) butter

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons packed light brown sugar (divided)

12 ounces rhubarb, trimmed and cut into ¾-inch chunks OR 12 ounces of frozen cranberries

1 2/3 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon baking soda

2 eggs

¾ cup plus 2 tablespoons buttermilk or sour milk

1/3 cup vegetable or sunflower oil

1 generous teaspoon grated ginger OR the zest of one small lemon and 1tsp vanilla bean paste or extract

Softly whipped cream OR Bird’s custard

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Melt butter in medium (10-inch) ovenproof frying pan. Stir in half the brown sugar and cook over low heat about 2 minutes. Add the rhubarb (cranberries) - no need to stir - and remove from heat. Set aside.

I added the brown sugar-butter-cranberry mixture to the bottom of the cake pan and just tried to spread it out in an even layer before pouring the cake batter on top. 

Into a bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, salt and baking soda.

Okay, we didn't sift it.  But this little guy stirred and stirred. 

In a 2-cup glass measuring cup or small bowl, whisk eggs and add remaining brown sugar, the buttermilk, oil and ginger (or zest and vanilla).

Our liquids are in the measuring cup in the center of this photo, just waiting to be whisked and incorporated into the batter. Emmett was so proud of himself for cracking the eggs and getting them all in the cup (no eggshells!). 

Mix together, then pour into dry ingredients and whisk to form a liquid batter.

Pour over rhubarb, in our case, cranberries, in pan. Place pan in preheated oven and bake 30 minutes or until cake feels firm in center.

The top, um bottom, was so beautifully browned and a little crisp around the edges.  It was a good idea to bake this on a baking sheet to catch the overflowing juices. 

Cool 5 minutes before turning out by placing an inverted plate over top of pan and turning pan and plate over together in one quick movement. Serve warm or at room temperature.