You’re doing well if you escape the Haute-Savoie region of France without developing a love for cheese. When I lived there in 2006, the supermarket had two aisles of cheese and goat’s cheese was so cheap I ate it on a daily basis. It was heaven. I returned to Australia and to paying upwards of $40 a kilo for specialty cheeses. So imagine my interest when I discovered that it was possible to make cheese at home. I bought a kit to try at home, but couldn’t make head or tail of it. In August this year I found a course run by Graham of Cheesemaking, held at The Essential Ingredient in Rozelle, Sydney, NSW, Australia. They have a purpose-built training kitchen in the shop. We made quark, greek feta, chabachou, stabilised camembert, traditional camembert, cheddar, milk ricotta, and whey ricotta. The biggest challenge was working out how to get my cheese home! Being a confirmed cyclist meant I had to strap a full-sized esky to the rear rack on my bike. It must have been a funny sight. I now feel completely confident I can make cheese at home. You don’t need much special equipment, and nothing can beat being able to say that a specialty product is home-made. I made my quark into a German cheesecake, my whey ricotta into pancakes (yum!), the milk ricotta was thrown together with peas and chicken in a light and delicious pasta, and I turned the chabachou into marinated Persian feta. Last Thursday I sampled the camembert with friends, and it was creamy and full of flavour – nothing like the supermarket. The worst bit is I still have to wait at least seven more months to try my cheddar!Sunday, 10 October 2010
Cheesemaking
You’re doing well if you escape the Haute-Savoie region of France without developing a love for cheese. When I lived there in 2006, the supermarket had two aisles of cheese and goat’s cheese was so cheap I ate it on a daily basis. It was heaven. I returned to Australia and to paying upwards of $40 a kilo for specialty cheeses. So imagine my interest when I discovered that it was possible to make cheese at home. I bought a kit to try at home, but couldn’t make head or tail of it. In August this year I found a course run by Graham of Cheesemaking, held at The Essential Ingredient in Rozelle, Sydney, NSW, Australia. They have a purpose-built training kitchen in the shop. We made quark, greek feta, chabachou, stabilised camembert, traditional camembert, cheddar, milk ricotta, and whey ricotta. The biggest challenge was working out how to get my cheese home! Being a confirmed cyclist meant I had to strap a full-sized esky to the rear rack on my bike. It must have been a funny sight. I now feel completely confident I can make cheese at home. You don’t need much special equipment, and nothing can beat being able to say that a specialty product is home-made. I made my quark into a German cheesecake, my whey ricotta into pancakes (yum!), the milk ricotta was thrown together with peas and chicken in a light and delicious pasta, and I turned the chabachou into marinated Persian feta. Last Thursday I sampled the camembert with friends, and it was creamy and full of flavour – nothing like the supermarket. The worst bit is I still have to wait at least seven more months to try my cheddar!
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WOW! So many questions about this! What was the crust like on the Camembert? Really amonia-y or okay? And did you have to use rennet to make the cheeses?
ReplyDeleteMy crust worked out perfectly, but when they say that the cheese will be ready after eight weeks, they actually mean, eat it at eight weeks. I at it at nine weeks and it was already really strong (like the good french stuff). It was lovely, really tasty and creamy. I'm going to make it for Christmas. We used vegetarian rennet to make some varieties. Can;t remember what it's made from, but is vege friendly!
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