Milk (55 page)

Note that the recipe calls for uncooked egg yolks, which some people will prefer to avoid. (There are versions of paskha where the
mixture is cooked or the yolks are hard-boiled, but I’ve never experimented with them.) The presence of raw egg yolks is also the reason for draining the mixture in the refrigerator, not at room temperature.

Before beginning the recipe, be sure that you have room for the cheese-filled flowerpot in the refrigerator.

YIELD:
12 or more servings (about 2 pounds)

Have ready a clean terra-cotta or other ceramic flowerpot of about 2½- to 3-quart capacity, with a hole in the bottom for draining. Also assemble a length of tight-woven cheesecloth, butter muslin, or other clean cotton cloth large enough to line the pot with some overhang; a rack and a deep plate to stand the pot on; and a means of weighting the cheese such as a small plate with a couple of heavy cans or large beach pebbles placed on it.

With a large wooden spoon or a pusher of the type French cooks call a
champignon,
force the cheese a little at a time through a fine-mesh strainer set over a deep bowl. Work it as smooth as possible with a large spoon.

Using a wooden spoon, cream the butter in a large mixing bowl. Beat the sugar into the egg yolks in a separate bowl, then work them thoroughly into the butter. Gradually beat the cheese in until it is smoothly incorporated. Work in the cream and vanilla extract.

Line the flowerpot with the cheesecloth, trying to eliminate wrinkles as much as possible. (The ones that remain will be clearly visible when you unmold the paskha.) Spoon in the cheese mixture, and smooth the top (which later will be the base of the paskha) as level as possible. Fold the edges of the cloth over the top.

Set the flowerpot on the rack over the larger plate, set the smaller plate and weights on top of the paskha, and put the whole arrangement in the refrigerator to drain for 18 to 24 hours, or until it has stopped dripping.

Unwrap the edges of the cloth and unmold the paskha by carefully inverting
it onto a serving plate. Gently peel away the cheesecloth and use the dried fruit and nuts to spell out the letters “XB” on the side.

Serve the paskha with kulich (see above). People can either eat it in spoonfuls or spread it on slices of kulich with a knife.

F
irst-time cheesemakers are often dismayed to see how much whey (and how little cheese) they end up with at the end of their labors. Their predicament is also that of the cheese industry as a whole. In a few parts of the world, practical uses have been devised for whey—e.g., the curious boiled-down brown substance that Norwegians adore as
mysost
(“whey cheese”). Or people have learned to recycle the whey in order to make what Italians call
ricotta. Farmers used to feed whey to
pigs (who love it) in copious amounts. It also has often been a useful aid to home breadmakers, as the liquid in a yeast dough.

In modern times, resourceful American marketers have succeeded in promoting spray-dried whey powder as a nutritional supplement (my advice is “Save your money”). Schemes to put it through
alcoholic fermentation to produce “whey wine” have been around for a long time, and today some visionaries claim to glimpse a bright future for whey as a source of ethanol.

For home cooks who find themselves awash in whey after making some simple fresh cheese or Indian panir, I suggest looking back to the time—not much more than a century ago—when it was considered a nutritious, cooling drink.

To me, the most delicious whey for drinking is the soured kind, like that
drained from
yogurt (
this page
). “Sweet” (unsoured) whey from various kinds of cheesemaking with little or no culturing of the milk has much blander flavor. But it makes an agreeable enough drink mixed with a good dash of lemon juice and a little sugar and poured over ice cubes. (People with lactose-digestion problems should know that unsoured whey is a concentrated source of lactose.) Still, I prefer it converted into sour whey by simple culturing: Inoculate the whey by stirring in some plain yogurt or buttermilk with active cultures. (The proportions can be flexible, but about
¼ to ⅓ cup of yogurt or buttermilk to 2 quarts of whey is a good rule of thumb. Yogurt works better if the whey is a little warmer than room temperature when you start.) Let it sit at room temperature until it is well soured; as with other forms of cultured milk, the timing will vary a lot. It is delicious poured over ice with a pinch each of salt and crushed dried mint, or a little sugar and lemon juice as for sweet whey.

I
f you don’t want to drink whey, another good use is as a cooking stock in cereal-based dishes such as pilafs. If you are going to make a renneted, not very sour cheese or the
chhenna/
panir in the chapter on Fresh Milk and Cream, build something like this into the menu plans. The whey makes a pleasantly neutral cooking liquid, adding a little more body than plain water without absolutely taking over as a strong meat stock would. (Caution: Whey that is too acid may make the bulgur remain overchewy even with long cooking.)

Middle Eastern cooks use bulgur in three grades of fineness. Coarse bulgur is the best for pilafs. If you have to settle for the medium grind of most supermarket bulgur, slightly reduce the cooking and resting time.

YIELD:
About 6 servings

Rinse the bulgur under cold running water, and let drain very thoroughly. Meanwhile, mince the shallots with the garlic.

Melt the butter in a saucepan. When it is fragrant and sizzling, add the shallot-garlic mixture and sauté over moderate heat just until translucent. Add the drained bulgur, and stir to coat the grains well. Cook, stirring, just until very lightly browned, about 3 to 4 minutes. Add the whey, salt, and optional paprika, cover the pan, and cook over low heat until the liquid is almost completely absorbed, about 15 to 20 minutes.

While the pilaf cooks, mince the parsley and mint together. In a small heavy skillet, toast the pine nuts over medium-low heat, stirring, until they are lightly browned; remove from the heat.

When the bulgur has absorbed nearly all the whey, put a kitchen towel over the pan, to absorb any condensation, and cover with the lid. Let the pilaf sit, either off the heat or over the lowest possible heat on a heat deflector like a Flame Tamer, for about 7 to 8 minutes. Fluff up the grains and serve at once, garnished with the minced herbs and toasted pine nuts. A little creamy yogurt stirred in at table is a pleasant addition.

VARIATION:
For
Barley Pilaf with Whey, replace the bulgur with ¾ cup pearl barley. Use 4 cups whey and 3 to 4 tablespoons butter. Increase the cooking time to 45 to 60 minutes (35 to 40 minutes if you like it extremely chewy). Check toward the end and add more whey or water if the barley is absorbing liquid too fast. Omit the resting and fluffing steps.

I have never found it necessary to invest in specialized equipment for making yogurt, butter, and fresh cheeses. The cultures I use to inoculate milk or cream can easily be obtained from commercial plain yogurt or cultured buttermilk. (The supermarket articles will work just fine as long as they contain live cultures; you may get even better-tasting results using artisanal versions from small local producers at farmers’ markets or specialty shops.)

My rennet source for cheeses (plain unflavored Junket brand tablets) is also available in some supermarkets and can sometimes be ordered through pharmacies. If you strike out, it is not difficult to contact the manufacturer online:
www.junketdesserts.com/
.

The really crucial pieces of equipment—as described in the yogurt, butter, and fresh cheeses chapters—usually have to do with temperature measurement and control, jiggle-proof incubators, and draining arrangements. I’ve always been content to improvise with inexpensive insulated containers, kitchen colanders, and sturdy tight-woven cheesecloth or cotton handkerchiefs. Still, I’d be delighted if some users of this book were sufficiently bitten by the home dairying bug to try experimenting with specialized bacterial strains and slightly more elaborate equipment. In that case, I recommend the New England Cheesemaking Supply Company (P.O. Box 85, Ashfield, MA 01330), a mail-order source and information center founded and maintained by Ricki Carroll. Send inquiries to
[email protected]
, or telephone 413–628–3808 to request a catalogue.

Among the many people who made this book possible, Judith Jones deserves my greatest thanks for the skill, patience, and insight with which she faced a most eccentric project. Judith’s indefatigable assistant, Ken Schneider, salvaged the entire manuscript from an eleventh-hour computer meltdown. (Up to then my nephew, Jorg F. Bauer, Jr., had managed to nurse an aging iMac through innumerable tragicomedies.) Many additional thanks to Iris Weinstein (who designed the interior of the book), Barbara De Wilde (who created such a delightful jacket), and to everyone else at Knopf.

Elisabeth Sifton encouraged me in an earlier version of this project and introduced me to the late Walter D. Howard, who put me on the path to understanding something about cows and dairying. Years later, Colman Andrews and Margo True at
Saveur
brought me back to the subject with a magazine assignment on milk.

Special thanks to my agent, the one and only Jane Dystel.

Thanks to many dairy and cheese professionals, including Art Hill, Allison Hooper, Paul Kindstedt, Paula Lambert, Patrick Longo, John Loomis, Max McCalman, the Murray’s Cheese crew (especially Taylor Cocalis), Debra and Eran Wajswol, and Karen Weinberg.

Equal thanks to some probers of nutrition-and-health questions, including Susan Allport (who read a portion of the manuscript in draft), Nina Planck, David Schleifer, and Nina Teicholz.

For assistance in historical research I am greatly indebted to the staffs of the American Museum of Natural History Library, the Bergen County (New Jersey) Cooperative Library System, the New-York Historical Society Library, and the New York Public Library (especially Tom Lisanti, Stefan Saks, and the peerless Dave Smith). Jack Hawley, Andrew F. Smith, Joanna Waley-Cohen, and Nach Waxman helped steer me to needed materials.