Savoury

Curd Cheese!

I just finished making curd cheese for the first time ever. It appears to have turned out kinda similar to ricotta in texture. I am both astonished and pleased. Astonished; since I didn’t expect it to turn out at all, and pleased since it’s extremely easy! I would have included photos; but alas, my digital camera is out of batteries. Next time, perhaps.

I made just a little bit of cheese using these quantities (it was just a proof of concept – didn’t want to waste lots of ingredients if it didn’t turn out okay)

About 250ml of whole milk
A couple of tablespoons of cream

Which are then heated until they begin to boil.

To the dairy, add the juice of 1/2 a lemon; and gently stir until the dairy curdles.

Once curdled; transfer to a sieve lined with several layers of cheesecloth, sitting over a bowl. Then, wait for most of the whey to drain off, leaving the cheese behind.

“Black Risotto”

At least, the plan was for black risotto. Instead of using the usual Arborio or Carnaroli, I went with Black Glutinous rice. What resulted was a sweet, slightly crunchy risotto; with a deep burgandy colour. This time around, I flavoured the risotto with chicken.

Black Risotto (serves 2)
1 small red onion, diced finely
1 clove of garlic, crushed
2 chicken thighs, diced
1 shot glass of cointreau
2 handfuls of black glutinous rice
1 cup homemade chicken stock (In my case, it’s much richer than store bought; so I dilute it)
3 cups water (aproximately)

Sweat the onion and garlic until aromatic; then add in the chicken. Saute until the chicken browns a little. Add the rice, and stir until the rice is glossy. Carefully add the cointreau, and stir until it evaporates. Lower the temperature, and add about a cup of stock+water. When that addition of liquid has been absorbed; add another cup of liquid. Repeat this step until the rice is tender.

Pizza

PizzaWe had pizza tonight. Simple pizza. Good pizza. We resurrected a wholemeal pizza base from the freezer, with mushrooms, sliced chicken thighs and proscuitto (and the all important tomato base and mozzarella cheese)

Cured Salmon

Here’s a picture of some salmon (Ooh, and the method I used) I cured on Sunday. The colour of the photo is suprisingly close to the actual colour of the salmon – it was extremely bright.



Cured Salmon

Oh so very red.

This is salmon, which I cured.

The cure was made from…
Zest of 2 limes
Zest of 1 lemon
1/4 cup sea salt
2 tablespoons of sugar

The zest of the lemons and limes was chopped up extremely finely; then mixed with the sugar and salt. I then rubbed the cure over the salmon; then wrapped it in foil and a zip-top baggie and left it in the fridge with a bit of weight on top. After a couple hours, I took the salmon out and patted it dry.
Yesterday, it ended up getting smoked; which was awesome.