Homemade goat cheese, grass fed beef and lamb, and fresh seasonal vegetables and fruit, these are the ingredients that make for wholesome meals. I’ve been reading Homecooked, essential recipes for a new way to cook by Anya Fernald. It’s one of those cookbooks with personal stories sprinkled liberally between the recipes. The kind of cookbook I like best.
Fernald is the CEO of Belcampo, a meat company and restaurant business with locations in California and Belize. The book celebrates the slow food, full fat, meaty lifestyle, with French Fries cooked in tallow, ravioli fried in canola oil, and raw beef cruda that’s served cold with olive oil. (Yes, you read that right. I did say, “raw”.)
The recipes are homecooked (or not) with attitude. Not the usual slow cooker and instapot fare that busy homemakers lean toward, these recipes will have you wondering if a chef wrote the cookbook, rather than a real homecook Recipes like seared quail and herb salad, beer braised rabbit with shallots, olive oil poached salmon, and pound cake made with lard are just some of the unusual recipes, all made with whole food ingredients.
Fernald was influenced in her cooking by her time spent in Europe in jobs related to the slow food movement and small scale food producers. Her recipes are a little unusual for a home cooking cookbook. The illustrations show her in a meat cooler with dozens of beef carcasses, working with 5 gallon pails of sheep cheese, standing over a dessert spread for at least a dozen people. The recipes take a fair amount of time to prepare. Some of them begin with making cheese from milk and pasta from flour and eggs. But for weekend cooking or special events, these recipes are full of inspiration.
Fernald is a talented and innovative cook. The breadth of the recipes move from elaborate appetizers and predinner co*cktails through the main course to very simple desserts. However, it’s in the meat dishes and the vegetable sides that this cookbook really shines. If you bought that side of beef or full carcass of lamb from your local grass-fed farm, and you’re left with a lot of brown paper wrapped packages that you aren’t sure how to cook, this book will inspire you. If you are still buying your meat and vegetables at the grocery store, and found meat or frozen food in your freezer from the last lysteria scare, this isn’t your cookbook.
One recipe in Home Cooked, “Fromagetto” makes one pound of cream cheese. While Fernald’s recipe call’s for cow’s milk, it is very similiar to my personal fresh goat cheese recipe. So let me share my Chevre recipe here. If you prefer to make it with cow’s milk, you’ll be making Fernald’s Fromagetto cheese.
Chevre
(similiar to the Fromagetto recipe in Home Cooked, p. 56)
This is a soft goat cheese that is cubed in salads or spread on crackers. It’s served in fancy restaurants as an appetizer. But if you make your own it will taste a thousand times better than any that you find in restaurants or grocery stores.
1/4 tsp of rennet + 1/4 cup water (see instructions)
1 tsp. Celtic salt
Method:
In a stainless steel pail, with a lid, place milk and kefir. Stir together. In a separate cup mix the rennet with the water. Remove just 2 tablespoons of the diluted rennet and add to the milk-kefir mixture. Discard the remaining rennet. Stir the milk well to fully integrate the rennet into the milk. Cover and allow the pail of mik to sit for 12 hours, undisturbed, in a cool spot.
Break the curd and allow the curd to settle in the pan. Line a colander with a heavy cheese cloth or tightly woven diaper (reserved for cheese making) and set it over a bowl to catch the whey. Reserve the whey for making ricotta cheese. Spoon the curd into the lined colander or into prepared couer la creme cheese molds. Every third scoop of cheese, sprinkle the curds with a little salt. Once all the curds are in the colander or the molds, cover with the cheese cloth and allow this to drain for 4 hours, or until it stops dripping.
Unmold the Couer la Creme molds or remove the chevre from the cloth into a wide mouth 2 cup mason jar. Serve as you would cream cheese or other fresh cheese. It should be eaten within 7 days. If you want to preserve it longer, wrap it in plastic wrap and store it in the freezer. It will keep for 3 to 5 months in the freezer.
Serve on bagels, toast, crackers, or cube it and toss with a salad
And while you are waiting for your cheese to drain, grab a cup of herbal tea, and the cookbook, Home Cooked, essential recipes for a new way to cook, and enjoy the slower pace of a slow food lunch, while you peruse the stories and the recipes in Fernald’s debut book.
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. I received a review copy of Home Cooked from Blogging for Books. As always, this review represents my honest opinion of the book.
Chevre is an easy cheese to make at home, simply bring fresh goats milk to room temperature, add culture and a few drops of rennet, give it a quick stir, cover the pot and set aside for 18-24 hours. Once set, drain the curd in a butter muslin lined colander, flavor with salt and enjoy.
And… it's stupid simple to make homemade chèvre. No special cheese making kit or rennet tablets required. While chèvre made with rennet tends to be firmer, this is dead on in taste and texture with the spreadable deli counter variety goat cheese that I love so much. The more you let it drain, the firmer it will be.
It sure is! “Chevre” means both “goat” and “goat cheese” in French and is frequently used to refer to fresh goat cheeses in particular. Fresh goat cheese, or chevre, is bright, tart, tangy, and delicious, but goat cheese comes in all shapes, sizes, and ages.
Vacuum-wrapped chevre from the grocery store can keep, unopened, for at least two months. But once opened, take it out of the packaging and store in a lidded plastic or glass container in the refrigerator.
Not to worry! It will change texture slightly but it will still be great in recipes like the ones below. When you freeze your cheese, wrap it carefully in waxed paper or plastic wrap and put it in a freezer bag. Plan to use it within a few months.
As is often the case with cheese making, there are a number of things that can contribute to an (unwanted) crumbly cheese, from using the wrong amounts of ingredients, to how you treat the curds. One of the most common reasons for a dry, crumbly texture in cheese though is over acidification.
The four animals most widely known as the sources of milk for cheesemaking are cows, goats, sheep, and water buffalo. To understand why goat milk cheese is more expensive than cow milk cheese, consider the availability of the milk, the production process of the cheese, and the supply chain (or 'path to market').
So why does goats' cheese taste of 'goat'? The scientific reason behind the goat flavour in goats' cheese, is that their milk has a higher amount of three smaller-chain fatty acids (caproic, capric and caprylic fat) that give those 'goaty', 'barnyardy' flavours.
Parmesan cheese is made with animal rennet which is an enzyme that comes from the fourth lining of the stomach of animals, typically calves, goats, and lambs. The animal is usually killed in the process. The rennet is then taken and dried so it becomes solid.
Goat cheese is a nutritious dairy product that is packed with vitamins, minerals and healthy fats. Eating goat cheese may benefit your health in several ways, including increasing satiety and reducing inflammation.
Chevre, or Le Fromage de Chèvre, to be more exact, is a French term that literally translates to Goat Cheese. As such, chevre cheese is an umbrella term that covers a wide range of goat cheeses and cannot be narrowed down to a specific variety, region, or even country.
Goat cheese can be stored packaged in the refrigerator for up to 3 months and unpacked for 2 to 3 weeks. The Best By date (MMDDYY) is estimated for your convenience on each cheese.
Answer: Goat cheeses, properly wrapped and refrigerated, should last for weeks, if not a couple of months. Like some cow's milk cheeses, many goat cheeses are meant to be aged, so you can't go wrong.
Goat cheese can be stored packaged in the refrigerator for up to 3 months and unpacked for 2 to 3 weeks. The Best By date (MMDDYY) is estimated for your convenience on each cheese.
How long will the cheese last? For some cheese, especially hard cheeses, they can last more than a year, if you can keep from eating them. Fresh cheeses like Ricotta and Mozzarella can last a week or two in your refrigerator. The same holds true for some Camembert, Brie's and Blue cheeses.
Wrap the log or portions in freezer-safe plastic wrap.Then either add to a freezer-safe zipper top bag or wrap in a layer of foil for extra protection from freezer burn.Place in the freezer. If you're storing the goat cheese in the freezer long term, write the date on the packaging and use within 3 months.
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