If Cheese Could Talk

My success rate for homemade cheese is about 20-30%.  For every good one I manage to make (and age, since that seems to be my downfall), there's another 3-4 bad ones.  The trouble is, often it's not until you've aged the cheese for many weeks or even months that you find out it's all gone horribly wrong.  And even then, the cheese stays silent as to what went wrong in the process.

Was it something I did while I was making you? Too much culture?  Too little heat?  Or was I neglectful when you were ageing?  Too dry or too humid?  Put me out of my misery and just say something!!

The good news is, there are some good self-help guides I can go to on the web that often shed some light on the most likely reasons for the inedible results.  And while some cheeses that have fallen to the waste bin will remain forever a mystery, others have helped me along on my cheese-making adventures to hopefully do better on the next ones.

So here's to all my failures (many more not pictured):

Top Left: Dill Havarti - texture was drier than it should be and it was way too salty.  Kind family and friends still ate it.  I love them.

What I Learned: Don't overdo it on the brine solution or leave the cheese brining for too long.

Top Right: Rosemary Cheddar (Bandaged at this stage) - super dry.  I think I didn't age long enough and didn't give it enough humidity.  The bandaging still is a puzzle to me - lots of black mold was growing on the outside which freaked me out so I just pulled it all off and cracked into early, for fear the mold was growing on the inside (it wasn't).

Learning: I guess the bandaging was working and I should have trusted it - but more humidity next time, so keep it in its own ageing box (these cheeses are sure high maintenance!!)

Bottom Left: Gouda - the texture was more like parmesan when we cracked into early (maybe a little over 2 months old). Taste was far too mild for an aged gouda.

Learning: More humidity so it's not so dry too early.

Bottom Right: Trappist Cheese - this one was actually quite tasty. Texture and taste were everyone's favourite.  BUT, the recipe had coriander seeds in the middle section of the cheese and this caused blue mold because the seeds left air pockets.
Learning: Next time, leave the seeds out.

Given the Trappist Cheese was the winner, I decided a nice confidence boost was in order.  Go with one you KNOW will work.. So I made it again, sans coriander seeds.  From the picture (right), it actually looks quite nice.  Then you taste it and it was DIS.GUST.ING.  What went wrong on this one still remains unsolved.

Awhhh. And Alas, R.I.P first-attempt at blue cheese.  Was looking good after a few weeks... Smelled like blue, looked like some nice blue veins.  But I think I left about 2 weeks too long ageing and in too humid conditions. What results is a stinky (not in a good way) cheese with greyish veins running through.
Learning: Don't go away on holiday assuming these cheeses will happily age themselves gracefully.  Contrary to popular belief, this is not the case.


**All my recipes came from Artisan Cheese Making at Home by Mary Karlin.  I've really enjoyed a lot of her recipes and she explains things very simply.  (Despite their simplicity, it seems there's still plenty of room for error!)

Between Jobs with Heston

There are probably a lot of noble things I could be doing with 1 month off between jobs, but somehow I find most of my time spent in the kitchen - either making and ageing cheese, or trying out new recipes.  What can I say, it's relaxing.. and delicious.

The extra time has given me a chance to dive in even further to Heston's cookbook promising "classic home cooking", Heston Blumenthal at Home.  His fondue worked a treat in the past and wasn't terribly difficult.  But what about some of his other recipes?

I'm still reticent to try, say, his Szechuan Broth with Duck Dumplings, where the recipe begins with: "This has lots of wonderful Asian flavours. It requires a bit of planning and preparation - you need to start at least two days in advance in order to ice-filter the stock..." (Not sure what it says next, as that's when I turned the page.)  But there do seem to be a fair amount of more reasonable feats.

In the last week, I've tried out these three:
Haddock with leek and potato sauce (recipe below - definitely a winner)
Pea & Ham soup (this was good, but not worth all the time required for sieving!)
Crab Lasagne (deserves a separate post, also a winner but a labour of love)

Admittedly, "leek and potato sauce" sounds rather dull, but the taste was nothing short of restaurant-quality goodness.

The sauce was easy to make but tasted very complex.  It takes 30 minutes to make the sauce, +5 minutes to cook the fish - and meanwhile I made a carrot/potato puree and chilli broccoli as sides.  I doubled the sauce so I could freeze half for a future supper - fingers crossed it freezes well!

For leek and potato sauce:

50 g Peeled and finely sliced potato (approx 1 small potato)

10g Unsalted butter

35g Peeled and finely sliced onion 

160g Cleaned and very finely sliced leek (this was about 6 leeks for me, but depends on size)

1 bouquet garni (thyme, celery leaf (I omitted this), parsley, and bay leaf - tied with a string or strip of leek)

200g Fish stock, warmed

10g Whipping cream

10g Whole milk

Salt and white pepper (white pepper instead of black makes a big difference)

For the fish:

Groundnut oil (I used olive oil)

2 Haddock fillets (also could be cod or halibut) - weighing 150-200g each

Chives, tarragon, to garnish

For the leek and potato sauce, rinse the sliced potato under cold running water for 30 seconds, drain well

Melt butter in saucepan over medium heat and cook the onion and potato for 10 minutes, stirring regularly.  Add the leeks and cook for a further 5 minutes.

Add the bouquet garni and warm fish stock and bring to a simmer for 10 minutes or until the potatoes are tender. Remove the bouquet garni and liquidize the sauce before straining it through a sieve into a clean pan.

Add the cream and milk and warm through.  Season with salt and freshly ground white pepper and keep warm.

To cook the fish, heat a thin layer of oil in a frying pan over a medium heat. Season the fish fillets on both sides with salt and place in the pan.  After approximately 2 minutes, flip the fillets over, cook for 2 more minutes and remove from heat,

Place the fillets on warm plates then, using a hand blender, froth the sauce and ladle it around the fish.  Chop the herbs and sprinkle over fish.

And there you have it - a restaurant quality sauce in 30 minutes - exactly what you'd hope to create with a cookbook like this.  Heston also says it would be great on scallops - think he's probably right (he's rarely wrong... unless you count including his Szechuan broth recipe in his "classic home cooking" book.)