Cheese-Making Course at Abbey Home Farm

While learning how to make cheese through books and online forums (and good ole trial and error) has yielded some positive results, there's nothing quite like having hands-on training with an experienced cheesemaker.  This is why I was ecstatic for November 24th to finally arrive - a long-awaited birthday gift from friends (given to me back in May) meant that I was spending the day in Cirencester at a beautiful farm, learning from a pro.

We arrived around 9am and enjoyed walking round the well-presented organic food shop - full of fresh fruits and veggies picked from the farm.  We had a coffee in the cafe and met Clive, the award-winning-yet-incredibly-humble cheesemaker who would be our teacher for the day.

How Now!!!!

Follow me! He said - and so we took a rambling walk through Abbey Home Farm, passing some friendly cows on our way.  We followed Clive to where the magic happens - a cheese-making facility full of large-scale cheese gadgets - and instantly my list for Santa was filled with ideas!  

Once there, we put on some science-lab looking jackets and sexy smurf shoe covers.  Note to self: Must look into obtaining similar garb at home to increase quality (and success rate) of my cheese.

The class was great for beginners as well as people, like me, who may have done some dabbling in the kitchen before.  Clive was excellent at explaining things very simply, but then was quite happy to field the 20-30 questions fired at him by me and my fellow classmates in our childlike curiosity of all things cheese.

Our sage , Clive

We warmed milk, added the special secret blend of cultures (not so secret in the end as Clive did share with us the list of cultures it includes), and let it stand for a while.  With time to kill, Clive offered us a tasting of all the cheese he makes - oh, go on then!  One of the cheeses was Dancys Fancy - his award-winning soft-cheese.  Instantly a favourite, it was welcome news to find out this was the cheese we were making today (assuming we were suitable pupils).  

We next warmed the milk again slightly and added the rennet to ripen the cheese.  Since we had more time to wait while the curds separated from the whey, Clive showed us how to make butter.  As an aside - butter making was quite interesting to watch as the cream transformed - at one point looking very similar to scrambled eggs.  We each had a go at shaping some butter using the grooved butter paddles.  (Dropped my butter once which was only 1 more time than anyone else.)

After butters were shaped and stored in the refrigerator (until the end of the course when we could take them home), we checked on the cheese which was ready to be cut.  We cut our curds, let them rest for just a bit, gently stirred them with our hands,and then it was time to place the curds into moulds where they will reside until the cheese is ready to be eaten!

    

We headed in for lunch - made by the organic cafe. It was a hearty vegetarian meal with a large side of Q&A with Clive - he sure had plenty of patience dealing with my many questions.  He also showed us where the cheeses are stored and gave us a taste of a few cheddars in different stages of ageing. It was really interesting to compare the mild, simple taste of a 3-month old cheddar with a nearly-ready, strong 16-month old cheddar.

We visited our cheeses, now in moulds, once more to bid them farewell and wish them good luck in the ageing process (which I've been told is where a lot of things go wrong).  Clive will look after them until they are ready to be eaten at which point he'll send them to us!  With any luck, they'll be ready (and more importantly, tasty) just before Christmas...

Homemade Pasta - For the inner Italian in all of us

Homemade pasta - sounds like a lot of effort but it's not!  Similar to bread-making, the main thing you need is some extra time.  It's not the kind of thing you're likely to whip up midweek after work.  However, it's equally not something that requires slaving away - the hands-on time is altogether around 30-35 minutes.

Now, I know there are some fancier recipes out there, but this one is easy to remember and hasn't failed me yet:

Ingredients/Supplies:

Tipo 00 Flour

Eggs (the fresher the better)

Pasta Machine (for rolling out, shaping pasta)

Ratio of 100g flour to 1 egg.

Make 100g per person plus 1 extra ratio of 100g flour/1 egg.  So if you are serving 4, use 500g flour and 5 eggs.

In a bowl, pour in flour and then make a well in the middle.  Crack the eggs into the well.

With a fork, whisk the eggs so that the yolks and whites blend together - you can take in some of the flour as you do this.  Once the eggs are fully whisked, use your hands to mix the flour and eggs together.  It might be a little sticky to work with until all of the flour gets worked in.

Once you've formed it into a ball, place it on a lightly floured service and knead it.  

I recall one of Jamie Oliver's books saying 3 minutes would do the trick - maybe if you have the world's strongest hands to knead the dough... For anyone with just average strength, the kneading process is more likely to take 6-10 minutes.  If you've made pizza dough, you'll know how the dough eventually changes in texture to something more smooth and elastic... it's the same for pasta dough... keep kneading until you get to that smooth, elastic feeling.  When you're there, wrap the dough in plastic wrap and put in the refrigerator for 1 hour.

Now the fun begins!  I have an imperia pasta machine (around £60 from Amazon) - it makes the job of rolling out the pasta super easy and fun.  When my nieces and nephews come for a visit - they enjoy joining in on this part... So it's also a great way to include kids in the process.

Take the dough from the fridge.  You will be working with it in batches - dividing it into the same number of people you plan to serve.  Take one portion and leave the rest wrapped in plastic and in the fridge. On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough to be roughly 1/2 inch thick with a width of roughly 4 inches.  

You will now knead this piece of dough using the machine.  You won't need the attachment which makes tagliatelle or spaghetti - just the main part of the machine is needed.  Put the machine on the widest setting and run the dough through it.  Fold the dough over itself (end to end) and run it through this setting again.  Then change the setting to 4 or 5 and run the dough through this setting.  Move back to the biggest setting, fold the dough over itself and run it through again.  [If you want, you can at this stage sprinkle some black pepper or dried herbs on the pasta before folding it over itself.]  Keep on going back and forth between the larger setting and the slightly more narrow setting - remembering to fold the dough back over itself before putting it through the larger setting.. Repeat this 6 times... by then the dough is very smooth.  The final step is to put the machine on setting 2 and run the dough through it.

Since I wanted to make papardelle, I next took the long, wide sheet of pasta over to the lightly floured cutting board... Lightly dust the pasta sheet and then widely fold the sheet like an accordion.  Now you can cut the pasta - roughly an inch wide or to your liking.  Lastly, hang each piece of papardelle on a drying rack until ready to use.  It's always best to use it immediately after making but is fine to dry out (If you leave it to dry for a long while, I put a moist paper towel on the drying rack or the pasta will break at the points where its hanging when you later try and remove it.)

Boil the pasta for a little over 2 minutes (3 minutes is overcooked in my opinion).
With homemade pasta, the sauce you make to accompany it doesn't need to take too much time or effort - as the pasta itself is the showstopper!  This past Friday night, I made pappardelle and cooked a simple chicken and gorgonzola cream sauce with chives to accompany it...  but I could have been just as happy having it with some nice olive oil and a bit of grated parmesan.

 No matter what kind of sauce it's served with, homemade pasta stands out - the freshness and the "bite" in it really make it well worth the extra time required.  And every time I make it, I think: why don't I make this more often!?

Bon Appetito!

Cheesterdam

Last month, my husband and I had a weekender in Amsterdam.  While we'd both been there before, we'd never been there together and thought it'd be a fun little getaway.  It was a really nice trip and we managed to take in lots of great sights, meandering among the beautiful canals and wandering through some museums...

 

Tilting our heads at all the slanted buildings and interesting creative license used in architecture and street art...

 

And tasting the delicious cheeses the Dutch have to offer - YUM!  Bring on the aged Gouda!
We came across the mother of all cheese shops - De Kaaskamer van Amsterdam.
If I ever own a cheese-shop, this is the template!!

 Amsterdam is a lovely place for a relaxing weekend - until next time, Proost!!