Neufchatel

A little more spreadable and creamy, but still too salty

After my attempt at making Boursin I decided to start at square one, which was to get a comfortable with neufchatel. I took another stab at it this weekend with some better results.


Ingredients:
Milk:

• Quantity: 1/2 Gallon
• Brand: Cub 2% Reduced Fat Milk.
• Notes: It says it's pasteurized, I don't know if it was ultra pasteurized. Grade A, Homogenized.

Other Ingredients:

• 1/8 tsp. Organic Vegetable Rennet. Double Strength Plus, Gluten Free, Non-GMO 
• 1/8 C. milk
• 1/8  Tbsp. of lemon juice
• 1/2 tsp. salt

Steps & Notes:

1. Buttermilk: I still don't have buttermilk so, again, I mixed 1/8 Tbsp of lemon juice with 1/8 C. of milk. This seemed to be the general substitute for buttermilk I could find on the internet.
2. Mix Buttermilk w/ Milk: I added the 1/8c. of 'Buttermilk' to the 1/2 Gal. of milk
3. Warm milk: Warmed milk to 65° F 
4. Add Rennet: I added 1/8 tsp. of rennet (Which was pre-mixed into 1/8c. of cold water).
5. Let Sit: I let it sit for 12 hours covered and undisturbed at room temperature. The curd was a little harder this time around, but still seemed a little soft. I don't know if having real cultured buttermilk will make the difference on this one or not.
6. Cut Curd: into 1/2 inch curds.
7. Strained Curd: I put the curd in a handkerchief and and let it strain overnight, because the curd still wasn't very hard, the whey was hard to separate out and it still seemed pretty moist. 
8. Add Salt: I added about 1/2 tsp. of salt into the cheese
9. Whipped cheese: The cheese still seemed a little curd-y and not very smooth, so I decided to experiment and whip it up a little to see if it smoothed out.
10. Let dry some more: I let it hang in the fridge a few more hours to get a little more of the whey out.

Results:

• Taste: Salty still. 1/2 tsp. was still a little too much for the 1/2 Gal. recipe. 
• Texture: It is a little more smooth and spreadable like a cream cheese.
• Overall the flavor and texture reminds me more of a fine curd cottage cheese. I think that's because I'm not using buttermilk. I read a few cottage cheese recipes where they use lemon juice to acidify the milk, but I haven't seen that in an neufchatel recipes.
• My wife likes it, except for how salty it is, so that is a good sign.
• I would give it an overall rating of about 3.5 stars. 

Possible Improvements:

• Use less salt.
• Use real cultured buttermilk. I think you might really need the buttermilk cultures, not just the acidity, so a imitation like adding lemon juice to milk doesn't help you much.
• I also had the idea of using the steamer pot that has a strainer that fits nicely into a majority of the pot. I can cut the curd, then lift the curd out and let the whey drain off more easily than trying to scoop out the already delicate curds.

Lavash Flatbread Chips

This isn't a very gourmet post, but I just had a short lived infatuation with some Flatbread chips I picked up on an impulse buy at Costco, they always get me with their free samples.

I think it is Costco's generic Kirkland brand Lavash Flatbread Chips made with some olive oil, flax seed, and rosemary. My excuse for buying them was for something to keep me awake on a recent road trip. They were great for that, and I didn't feel like I had to eat a ton of them to fill up, just a few handfuls and I was good.

I found a few other uses for them.

1. They made some killer nachos. Cheese on rosemary flavored chips, I don't know how you can go wrong.
2. Crushed up and used to top soup and chilli.
3. Crushed up and used as topping to casserole or to bread anything (I actually didn't test this one, but I think it would be really good.)

They certainly won't be a staple food that will always be found in the cupboard, but we got some good mileage out of them.

Ultimate Mozzarella Failure: Can't rush a good Cheese

This failure was worse than the last failure. Both were
grainy, but this time I ended up working with it until
is completely disintegrated in my hands.

Don't have to add much more to this post. My wife asked me to make some mozzarella for a pasta salad she she made for the same picnic for which I was attempting to make Boursin.

I tried making it very quickly while at the same time making the Boursin; possibly another reason the boursin didn't work out. I was trying to finish the mozzarella as my wife and son were walking out the door.

A few of the things that I think went wrong:

1. I didn't steralize the pot. (We don't have a lot of pots and pans right now, so I reuse the same pot everytime I make cheese)
2. The milk was too hot when I added the rennet. I don't really know what effect this has on the cheese making processes, but the milk was quite a bit warmer than it should have been and didn't take the time to let it cool.
3. Didn't let the the curd setup as long as I usually do, which I think was the ultimate demise of the cheese.
4. Didn't get enough whey out before I tried to knead and pull the mozzarella.

The end result was a grainy curd, that wouldn't hold together. When I strained it the curd started to break up. I tried heating it in the microwave to no avail. As I pulled the cheese it wouldn't start streeching, instead it got grainier and started to disintegrate. As the ball got smaller and smaller I couldn't help feeling frustrated and in the end I washed it all down the sink so I could catch up with my wife, who at this point was already down the hall on her way out.

The lesson learned, don't try and rush a good cheese.

Attempted Boursin from Neufchatel

My sister-in-law pulled out some Boursin at her husbands birthday party we had on the 4th of July. It was delicious and inspiring. I left with my mind already decided to try and make some for our get together the next day.

After looking around on the internet, I decided to go with a neufchatel base, with added herbs. Many of the recipes I saw used cream cheese as a base then added butter, herbs, and spices. I decided to just try neufchatel because I couldn't find a good homemade cream cheese recipe. I didn't want to add extra butter, so I just left it out.

It was doomed from the start since I had never made neufchatel or boursin before and was in a hurry. The recipe I used is from Dr. Fankhauser and the details of what I did are below with more on the results at the end.

Ingredients:
Milk:

• Quantity: 1/2 Gallon
• Brand: Cub 2% Reduced Fat Milk.
• Notes: It says it's pasteurized, I don't know if it was ultra pasteurized. Grade A, Homogenized.

Other Ingredients:

• 1/8 tsp. Organic Vegetable Rennet. Double Strength Plus, Gluten Free, Non-GMO 
• 1/8 C. milk
• 1/8  Tbsp. of lemon juice
• 3 cloves of Garlic
• 3-4 Chives
• A few slices of Onion
• 1/4 cup Parsley ( I think)

Steps & Notes:

1. Buttermilk: I didn't have buttermilk so I mixed 1/8 Tbsp of lemon juice with 1/8 C. of milk. This seemed to be the general substitute for buttermilk I could find on the internet.
2. Mix Buttermilk w/ Milk: I added the 1/8c. of 'Buttermilk' to the 1/2 Gal. of milk
3. Warm milk: Warmed milk to 65° F 
4. Add Rennet: I added 1/8 tsp. of rennet (Which was pre-mixed into 1/8c. of cold water).
5. Let Sit: I let it sit for 4 hours covered and undisturbed at room temperature. The curd was a little soft, but proceeded anyway because I was short on time.
6. Cut Curd: I 1/2 inch curds.
7. Strained Curd: I put the curd in a handkerchief and and let it strain for a few hours. I tried to speed the process up by squeezing it at several points. 
8. Prepared Herbs: I mixed the garlic, onion, chives, and parsley in a cuisine-art. Measurements are estimates, I didn't really keep track of how much I put in.
9. Add Salt: I added about 1/2 to 1 tsp. of salt into cheese
10. Mixed Cheese & Herbs: I mixed part of the herb mix with a majority of the cheese. I left some out to see what the normal neufchatel would taste like.
11. Let sit: I let it all sit together for a few hours while more whey strained out.

Results:

• Plain Neufchatel Taste: It was really salty. The salt was over powering
• Herb 'Boursin' Taste: I put way to much garlic. I also over did it on the parsley not to mention I shouldn't have put in onion, the chives would have been enough..
• Texture: Somewhat moist, but more grainy and dry than creamy. It wasn't spreadable, it just kind of crumbled apart. I think partly due to trying to speed up the whey draining and also due to too much garlic, salt, etc...
• The people I shared it with at our picnic generally had good things to say, but curiously no one ate much more after their first try. A little 9 year old really liked it, he loved how garlicky it was.
• I would give it an overall rating of about 3 stars. 

Possible Improvements:

• Don't add as much salt.
• Don't use as much garlic.
• Leave out onions.
• Give myself more time so I can (1) let the curd setup more (2) let the whey drain off at a slower pace, hopefully making a smoother consistency
• Use real cultured buttermilk. I think you might really need the buttermilk cultures, not just the acidity, so a imitation like adding lemon juice to milk doesn't help you much.
• Try adding some butter to the neufchatel to achieve a richer Boursin imitation.