The Real Know How

How-Tos, Videos, Tutorials — Ramping Up for the 21st Century

Archive for the tag “yoghurt”

23 Mar 2012

Making Labneh (Yoghurt Cheese)

Labneh making is pretty straightforward and can be formed into balls and preserved in oil.

Mariam shows us how to make labneh, step by step:

Dede shows us how she makes plain labneh then flavors it:

The labneh I’ve had before (at a restaurant) was over-the-top in a good way rich and creamy, so may guess is how tasty it is is greatly affected by the yoghurt you use and the milk/cream it’s made with.

The labneh can be preserved in oil and in this way stored for months without refrigeration. To do so, the labneh is drained for longer and formed into balls (labneh makboos).

Evelyn write “This is an old-world recipe. It is really just drained, salted yoghurt, very easy to make and very easy to preserve. I guarantee that once you have made these and tasted how delicious they are, they will become a staple in your home.

Read more: http://www.food.com/recipe/yogurt-cheese-labneh-88089#ixzz1pn4sP7oS” and gives this recipe

The recipe proceeds pretty much like Dede and Mariam’s tutorials but instead of draining the yoghurt for 12 hours or overnight you drain the yoghurt for something like 24 hours, until you are able to form the yoghurt into balls, which you then chill in the fridge to firm up further. The balls are then put into a heat sterilized jar and covered with oil.

I assume that getting out as much water as possible is important in being able to preserve these balls – though the active yoghurt culture will also play its part.

Ellie from Home Cooking in Montana adds herbs and spices to the oil she pours over her labneh makbus.

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Posted in cheesemaking, cooking, dairy, fermented foods, food preservation, lacto-fermented, preserving, recipe, yoghurt and tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment
29 Feb 2012

Room Temperature Cultured Yoghurts

These are very easy to make yoghurts because you don’t have to mess around with warming milk or closely monitoring temperatures.

Instead, mesophilic yoghurts culture best at around 70 degrees Fahrenheit and all you have to do to start them is to add the culture or already cultured yoghurt to milk and wait a few hours.

Really easy and all you have to do to keep things going is to feed the yoghurt with fresh milk or cream (these cultures love cream) periodically. They can be used to culture non-dairy milks also, but will also need to be fed dairy regularly to be kept healthy.

The mesophilic yoghurt cultures readily available online all come from the Nordic countries:

Viili which comes to us from Finland. Has a mild, creamy flavor and goopy texture (kind of like okra)

Piima, more of a buttermilk type of cultured product

Filmjolk, which has a cheesy flavor.

We’ve tried viili and piima and the viili won out. I keep a large crock, that I feed periodically in the fridge. It’s easy to keep going.

A Finnish friend of mine told me that her grandmother had a viili cabinet and I can see why, as the culturing is temperature sensitive and can be affected by drafts or even by higher room temperatures caused by cooking.

I’ve let mine go longer than I wanted/be out when the temperature was higher and got a thicker cottage cheese type culture (which we also liked). Our viili culture likes cream, sheep’s milk and full fat unhomogenized cow’s milk. It doesn’t perform so well with goat’s milk (the mixture stays runny).

Anyway, here is the CulturesforHealth video on viili (process is exactly the same for piima and filmjolk).

Cultures for Health is one of the sources for these cultures, but there are many others, including GEM Cultures. I shopped around and bought mine from Etsy.

Please let us know of your experiences with these cultures.

Posted in dairy, fermented foods, food preservation, lacto-fermented, save money, yoghurt and tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

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