Tag Archives: buttermilk

Buttermilk Calamity..or An Accidental Cheese

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In the last post (Living on the edge…) I mentioned that I buy fresh (raw) milk at a small farm for my family.  I take off most of the cream to make butter.  This leaves buttermilk. And buttermilk is not where cheese comes from, right?

Have you ever actually poured buttermilk in a glass and sipped it?  Me either.  I can’t bring myself to try it.  It just sounds bad.  My father drank buttermilk.  He swore it was good.  He also said that about headcheese.  Lots of people seem to like headcheese, but it kind of canceled his vote with me, you know?

But back to buttermilk.  It doesn’t look good.  It doesn’t smell good.   After extracting the butter (and this is the current crop- luscious!) I end up with a big batch of buttermilk.  I can use it for fried chicken ( I’ll explain that another day with photos).  We don’t use up much this way since we don’t have fried chicken every week.  Hypothetically I use it for salad dressing too, but in reality we use very little salad dressing.  My kids like things “nekked”.  So all this buttermilk sits in the freezer.

The Buttermilk Calamity:  Tonight I took out just a bit to thaw.  It helps to put a little in with the cream before you start shaking the butter out.  I put that little bit into the microwave (cause I didn’t have my thinking cap on) and set it to thaw for about 3 minutes (see what I mean).  So when I noticed that it was boiling I took it out.  Then I realized that it had separated.  What was buttermilk, now looked like “curds and whey”. It kind of looked bad.  Like really bad.

It didn’t smell bad.  It smelled somehow familiar, and really, really good!  I grabbed a fork and tasted a little of the curd (yeah- I’m like that).  It was cheese! An accidental cheese.  And It was great! I also had the hubby taste it (he tried not to- the wuss!).  After I lovingly encouraged him (to stop being a baby) he tasted it.  He agreed- it’s like some sort of mild, buttery fresh mozzarella flavor.  I then googled “heat buttermilk make cheese” and discovered that there are many recipes for “farmer’s cheese”.  They all seem to be mainly milk, buttermilk and salt (occasionally vinegar).   Here is a link to a video of Matt and Ted Lee making  Buttermilk Fresh Cheese on the Martha Stewart show.   Don’t worry, Martha and I have an understanding.  Like: when there are links all over the video allowing you to share it, I understand that it’s probably okay to share.  So here it is.  Courtesy of  Matt and Ted, via Martha.  BTW, Matt and Ted have a truly brilliant cookbook: The Lee Bros. Simple Fresh Southern.

So, if you have a Buttermilk calamity of your own (well, it could happen!) remember that it’s not a total waste.  Grab some crackers, put your feet up and enjoy a cheese break! .

Living on the edge…with fresh milk

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Tomorrow is Tuesday.  Milk day.  Raw milk.  Contraband.  I have to drive 25 minutes north of my house to buy this stuff.  It’s not legal here.  Makes me feel like one of those bootleggers from the last century. Like someone from the Beverly Hillbillies.  I loved that show.  That theme song still gets to me.

Oh yeah, this is about milk.  Raw milk causes so much controversy.  By law, in most states, cow milk must be cooked.  They heat it to high temperatures, ensuring that ALL the bacteria is killed.  Good and bad.  It also changes the proteins, and destroys most or all of the enzymes, making it hard for many people to digest.   It’s still a good idea for commercial dairy’s.   Their cows are raised under less healthy conditions, and the milk has many opportunities to get contaminated between the cow and your cup. Human breast milk is also raw milk.  No one ever expects you to cook human breast milk.  Or sterilize the stuff.  FYI- most women don’t use any special cleaning process.  It’s “hoist and latch”. 

But this is about cow milk.  I’ve been doing the running every Tuesday for just a few weeks now.  Some in our family are fans of the taste.  It’s also richer.  Especially Jersey milk.  There’s a lot of cream that rises to the top.  You have to shake it up to mix it.  Unless you’re PJ.  Then you sort of pretend to shake it and enjoy a big fat helping of cream in your milk. One person in our family, won’t touch it.  I’m not saying who…. but she recently returned from Guatemala and was quite happy to come back to a civilized country where milk is pasteurized.  She has no intention of drinking “that stuff”.   I still buy her the regular, legal, boring stuff.

But, back to the fresh stuff.  When I get home, I try to take off most of the cream (after I let PJ get at a cup of “premium”).  Usually we use it to make butter.  It’s easier than you’d think.  I pour it into a large glass jar, and add 1 Tblsp of butter milk (the real kind that’s left after making butter) or yogurt with active cultures.  I mix that and set it out for a few hours to culture.  Then, just start shaking.  It takes anywhere from 5-10 minutes to shake the butter out.  After all the butter is shaken out, pour off the liquid (that’s the buttermilk), but save it for another use.  I use a bit for more butter, and also to make salad dressing.  I also use it to soak chicken in before frying. 

Take the rest of the butter and put it into a bowl with icy cold water.  Swish it around; press lightly against bowl, rinsing, draining and refilling with cold water when the bowl of water looks cloudy.  The cloudiness is the last bit of buttermilk.  You want to get it out as it’s kind of tangy.  The butter will be sweeter if you do.  After the water stops clouding up, you can drain the bowl and add salt to the butter if you want.  If you want fancy butter pats you can press it into butter molds; or plastic candy molds work well too.  Or, you can just scoop it into a container and enjoy.  

 

*** Photo of rinsing butter was borrowed from http://www.raisingarrows.net/2010/05/making-butter-from-raw-milk/ 

Amy’s website is filled with great information and inspirational stories.