Haloumi

We're in the process of moving house and our new one is still pretty much in the gutting and rebuilding stage at the moment. However, I'm desperate to get on with making some cheese. The conditions in the kitchen where we're staying at the moment serve up enough challenges as it is, without the added difficulty of attempting to find a suitable and clean environment to age a hard cheese in. So, the plan is to make haloumi which matures in a brine and won't object to the humidity or temperature of wherever I leave it to age.

I'm also limited to the amount I can make. My largest cooking vessel is 1 1/2 gallons and my cheese press probably can't handle a particularly high yield. So I'm halving the recipe to a modest 1 gallon of whole milk and 2 ounces of prepared mesophilic starter culture.

In preparation, the night before I took the milk out of the fridge and sterilised all the equipment for the morning. This will be an all day effort and I don't want to delay the start by waiting for the milk to get up to temperature and the Milton tablets to do their business.

The milk is heated to a delicate 30degC, this should not be done over direct heat. As I obviously don't have a vessel large enough to hold my largest vessel I've opted to do this in the sink, which presents me with the first problem of this kitchen in that the plug leaks and has to be packed around with cling film to keep the water in. Also doing this will mean you need to pay constant attention to the temperature and occasionally drain and replace the water in the sink which could lead to an infection issue as the thermometer will be constantly in and out of the milk.

Once at 30degC pitch in the starter culture and a few drops (1\4 a teaspoon) of liquid rennet. This needs to be stirred in an up and down motion (to evenly distribute the rennet) and left to set for 30-45 minutes until the milk gives a clean break with the thermometer. This should look something like this:

It took an extra hour for mine to get to this stage, and really I should probably have left it a little longer ideally, but I'm getting seriously behind on schedule so I moved on to the next stage. Cut the curds into half inch cubes with a sharp knife. That means cut across one way, turn 90 degrees and cut across the other way, then cut diagonals to slice across the curds below the surface.

Now bring the temperature up to 40degC over the course of 45 minutes. About 1 degree every 5 minutes. This involves constant attention, you have to gently stir the curds from time to time to keep them from matting. Mine are particularly fragile as I didn't leave them to set for very long. After 45 minutes they are very clearly visible against the whey.

Leave at this temperature for another 20 minutes and carefully ladle the curds into a colinder lined with cheese cloth.

The whey I'm retaining for a bit later so this goes back into the milk containers from this morning. On a side note, never throw whey away. You can make the best ricotta just by heating it on a stove and adding some lemon juice. But that's for another day...

Press the curds into moulds and press at 30lb of pressure for an hour, then re-bandage, turn over and press at 50lb of pressure for 30 minutes.

As you can see it's risky business, a bit like playing Buckaroo but with slightly more dire consequences as 22kg of weight goes crashing about in the kitchen. It's a relief to free the 2 moulds of curds and admire how well they turned out.

Cut them into 3 inch cubes, or in my case cut them in half as they're already quite small.

In a bit I'm going to need some cooled brine so I'd better get on with that. Add 500g of kosher salt to 1 gallon of nearly boiling water and leave to cool to make a saturated brine solution.

Bring that reserved whey up to between 80 and 90degC and cook the curds in the whey for 1 hour.

After an hour they should be firm with a texture a bit like chicken meat. Place them in a colinder and salt them with 25g of kosher salt. Now just leave them for 2-4 hours in the colinder.

Earlier I had prepared a saturated brine solution and this is what the cheese will age in. Leave it for 60 days to develop a true flavour.

I'll come back to these in March! :-)

If you like halloumi, consider holidays in Cyprus.

Polish Rye Bread

Here's an easy one to get started with, or at least it should be. I seem to have more difficulty in guessing the wetness of the dough and how much to work it, it always leaves me slighty worried as to whether it's going to be too stodgy.

Great bread though, the honey and milk make it, and the salt and the caraway cut through beautifully.

Ingredients

225g Rye Flour

225g White Bread Flour

2 tsp Salt

1 Sachet (7g or 15g if using fresh) Yeast

2 tsp Caraway Seeds

1 tsp Runny Honey

140ml Luke Warm Milk

140ml Luke Warm Water

Sieve the flours and the salt into a bowl and make a well in the centre to pour your liquids into. Combine the milk, honey and yeast and mix well until the honey is fully dissolved into the milk and the yeast is creamed in. Pour the mixture into the well in the flour and flick some of the flour from around the edge over the top. Leave this to "sponge" for about 15 minutes to activate the yeast and wake it up. It should be a bit bubbly and frothy.

Pour in the water and incorporate all the flour to make a dough. It should be smooth and slightly elastic. Work it for about 10 minutes on the worktop and transfer to a lightly oiled bowl.

Cover the bowl in cling film and leave in a cool place to prove for about 3 hours. It should double in bulk.

Prepare a baking tray with some lightly oiled baking paper. Tip the dough out onto the worktop and knock it back (literally, punch it). Shape it into a sort of oval cushion shape and place it on the baking tray. Cover this lightly in cling film and leave for an hour to second prove.

Pre-heat the oven to 220degC. Lightly dust the loaf with flour and with a very sharp knife make 2 slashes along the length of the loaf.

Bake it for 30-35 minutes. It's done when tapping it on the base makes a hollow noise. Cool it on a wire rack.

It's a perfect loaf to make the day after a roast post joint because it goes brilliantly with the cold meat, so good for using up leftovers at lunchtime.

A suitable bread for eating just before lent.

Well, hello

Wow, I finally did it! I've been thinking of starting a blog for ages and never got round to it. I think I just always assumed my ramblings wouldn't make particularly engaging reading. I now find myself at an interesting point in my life - I just bought a house and I'm sitting next to my 9 day old daughter. I've spent the last few years collecting little bits of food knowledge and scrambling around trying to find some direction to take my hobby. I'm still not quite there, but I think I probably do enough with food to give me something to write about. So, it's time to leave my old private forum behind and move on to the big world of the blog. I have such grand plans for the future. Brewing, cheese making, curing, sausage making, baking, gardening and pretty much whatever else pops into my head! Watch, wait and see how many of these projects materialise into something more than an idol promise to myself. Scuff