Homemade Herbed Goat Cheese
Category: Cocktails & Appetizers | Blog URL: http://kissmyspatula.com/2010/01/03/homemade-goat-cheese/
This recipe was entered in The Foodista Best of Food Blogs Cookbook contest, a compilation of the world’s best food blogs which was published in Fall 2010.
Photo: G.
Ingredients
Preparation
Tools
About
2010. My god, 2010: the start of, not only a new year, but an entirely new decade. (Gulp). Not so long ago, it seems, I was still daydreaming of running off to Japan with Ralph Macchio and mastering the art of catching flies with Mr. Miyagi’s chopsticks. Decades later, I’m married to the love of my life, and mastering the art of: feeding him. He likes to be fed, I tell ya. Now, we daydream of someday retiring to the South of France, owning a little mas, or farmhouse, and tending to our garden – all so, I can feed him, some more. There would be lemon trees, rows and rows of vegetables, maybe even some grape vines, and a hen or two for fresh eggs. After today, we’ve tacked on another necessity to the ever-growing daydream. A goat.
We MUST own a goat. Not only are they cute, but goats produce milk. Which, in turn, proves useful when making something very near and dear to my heart. Goat cheese. Admittedly, I carry around a healthy dose of snobitude when it comes to cheese. Especially, my goat cheese. If you’re ever looking for me at a farmer’s market, make a bee-line for the cheese purveyors. I’m their master sampler. Have you ever noticed how spirited and sprightly these people are? They surely have membership to some underground society, like the Freemasons, with secret handshakes and oaths, to guard the methods for producing those fine looking, artisanal puck-shaped discs and logs. Well, well, well…turns out, there is no secret.
Basically, all you do is buy yourself a quart of goat’s milk. Simmer it. Add some lemon juice. Tie it up in a little pouch. Leave it out to dry. And then….here comes the hard part. Wait. Drip, drip, drippity drip. In a bit over an hour, you’ll have, at your fingertips, a batch of homemade goat cheese. Making mozzarella in my own kitchen, which, I naively thought, was already pretty darn special, plays second, if not third, fiddle to this. The distinct, clean and tangy taste, along side a hint of garlic, will blow your mind. Your salads, crostinis, pizzas, omelets, cheese plates, the list goes-on-and-on, will take on entirely new meaning. And, probably much to their delight, I won’t be bothering my local cheese purveyors anymore. This decade is off to a tremendous start.