Homemade Labne with homemade dukka and edible flowers

 

Labne cheese is basically strained yogurt. I use Cyclops organic yogurt (green top) which I find to be the best for making labne. Use think plain yogurt which is just yogurt (no added gelatin or other thickeners).

To strain the yogurt I used a cotton cloth, not too fine, but finer that a muslin cloth or cheese cloth. Tight well and hang in the fridge with a container underneath to collect the liquid. Leave it for at least one night and one day. Two days if you can.

To make dukka put some almonds in a skillet and toast quickly, then add pumpkin and sunflower seeds and toss in the hot skillet for one more minute, finish with the coriander seeds, which will need only one minute. Cool down and place in a mixer (keep a few almonds and seeds aside for decoration) with a good pinch of salt, and if you like some smoked paprika. Ground. Place the labne on a platter, cover with dukka and the whole seeds and before serving add rosemary flowers and friarielli or broccolini (or similar brassica) flowers.

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Yogurt with quince topping - yogurt con sciroppo di mele cotogne

A simple dessert or a treat at any time of the day: use some plain thick yogurt, like greek yogurt, or yogurt from The Collective Dairy. For the topping I cooked some quince apples until mushy, then I put them into a muslin cloth over a bowl for a night to collect the juice. I measured the liquid and added half of its weight in sugar and boiled everything until I got a thick syrup. This can be kept in the fridge for a long time and spooned over the yogurt (or cakes or other desserts) when needed. So yummy!

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Torta Bianca allo Yogurt - White Yogurt Cake

I am very pleased with this recipe, of course I always eat all my experiments, even when I am not so happy about them, but this one… I devoured it! It was so soft and light, possibly the
softest-cake-with-taste ever (if you know what I mean… some 'soft' cakes taste like air, or like a bath sponge!!).

Ingredients
butter to grease the tin (I used a ring tin)
3 egg whites
300 g sugar
250 g plain yogurt (I used full fat)
300 g self raising flour
1 pinch of salt
one drop vanilla essence
icing sugar to dust (optional)

Grease the cake tin with butter. Beat the egg white until they form a peak. In another mixing bowl fold the sugar and yogurt with a wooden spoon. Add the flour, salt and vanilla essence and mix well, then add the beaten egg whites little by little and fold. Pour the mixture in the cake tin and bake in a preheated oven at 180°C for approximately 40-50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean. Dust with icing sugar if you like.

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

How to make Labne

Labne is a strained yogurt 'cheese', to make it you just need plain yogurt (I used a pot Straight Up from The Collective Dairy). To strain the yogurt I used a cotton cloth, not too fine, but finer that a muslin cloth or cheese cloth. Place the cloth in a fine mesh strainer over a bowl, spoon the yogurt in, close the cloth over it and top with plate that will fit the shape of the strainer, and then with a weight. Leave in the fridge for one or even two days if you can. The collected liquid can be used in baking, and what you are left with is a creamy labne, ready eating, for spreading, or to make Labne balls.

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

One pot quick and easy frozen mango yogurt

Nothing could be easier, and with only two ingredients (and yes, two of my favourite NZ products: Fresh As and The Collective Dairy). I used many different Fresh As powders and freeze dried fruit slices (you can find a few recipes here) in the past, but this time the choice was mango, as I like mango ice cream, and I guessed that mango frozen yogurt would be good too! I mixed 3 tsp of mango powder (btw, this is just 100% mango) to 450 g (half a jar) of Straight Up yogurt, and the put it in the freezer for two hours, stirring from time to time. The I whipped everything with an immersion blender (so I didn't even need to take the yogurt out of its pot) and served it. Easy as!

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Instant Breakfast

This is for the boy, as he prefers to "drink" his cereals in the morning (takes less time!)

Ingredients:

Half glass pouring yogurt (I use boys'nberry - 

yes, a different spelling from boysenberry, good for boys!)

Half glass milk

1 Weet Bix

1 banana (I use All Good Bananas)

1 tbsp blueberries

Instructions:

Blend and drink. It makes one glass and half of thick and filling smoothie!

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Raita, or Tzatziki

Still in yogurt mood, and why not, it is hot and summery and I feel like eating refreshing food.

I love making this yogurt sauce, I call it raita when I serve it with Indian food, and tzatziki when I serve it with Greek-Turkish food. The only difference is that when I make tzatziki I like to add mint.

You just need some thick yogurt (otherwise strain it) salt to taste, finely chopped cucumber, and if you like, a few leaves of mint, broken with your fingers. So yummy on salad and hot or spicy food, and as a dip. 

Also I would like to take this chance to say that yesterday I went to a beautiful wedding, and I would like to wish our beautiful friends Sophie and Brendan a very happy life together. Congratulations!

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Roasted spicy chickpea salad with minty yogurt dressing

1 can chickpeas
1 tbsp Moroccan spices
1 pinch salt
A few cherry tomatoes
4 tbsp natural yogurt
A few mint leaves
1 tsp extra virgin olive oil
1 apple cucumber
80 g mixed salad leaves to finish

Drain the chickpeas and place in a bowl with the Moroccan seasoning and salt, mix well and then place on a baking tray lined with baking paper. Bake on medium for 10 minutes, adding the tomatoes at the last two minutes so that they will just start to roast, but will be still whole. In a serving bowl mix the yogurt with the mint leaves, broken up with your fingers, and the olive oil, add the chickpeas and tomatoes, still hot, then an apple cucumber, peeled and chopped. Fold well and then add the salad leaves, give the salad a last little stir and then serve. Delicious and so quick and easy!

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Marinated strawberries with Greek yogurt and dried lychees

This is a super easy and super yummy sweet treat, gluten free and low in sugar too. Hull and cut the strawberries into halves (or quarters, if very big) then place in a bowl with a tbsp of sugar and 2 tbps of lemon juice. Stir and let them rest at room temperature for a few hours stirring from time to time to get more juice out, then refrigerate until serving time. To assemble place a few strawberries and their juice in tumblers, top with 1 tbsp or 2 of Greek Yogurt (I used this one) and finish with a dried lychee. 

This is my first entry for this month's Sweet New Zealand, hosted by The Kitchen Maid. I may have a few more, as I really feel like having a Sweet November! :-).

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Shrikhand

I got the idea from Zero in Cucina, recipe here, so thank you Chiarina-ina :-). 

Chiarina's version called for some yogurt, mushed cardamom seeds and saffron (I used a sachet of Italian saffron) and she adds a little icing sugar just before serving. I did it a bit differently, I added a tbsp of bush honey to mine. I use Cyclop yogurt, thick and creamy. Put everything in a gauze or fine cotton cloth and let it drip for a night (I did it for a bit more). It tastes delicious and quite... citrusy!! In fact it is difficult to guess the ingredients, everybody said lemon!! I liked it like it was, but the rest of the family added some maple syrup to it (I guess that it was a bit too... sour for their taste).

After straining the yogurt I had all this saffron 'juice' left. OK, it is not that much, but still, not something that I would want to discard! So tomorrow I will show you what I did with it!

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

How to make Labne Balls

Lebne cheese is basically strained yogurt. I use Cyclops organic yogurt (green top) which I find to be the best for making labne. Use think plain yogurt which is just yogurt (no added gelatin or other thickeners).

To strain the yogurt I used a cotton cloth, not too fine, but finer that a muslin cloth or cheese cloth. Tight well and hang in the fridge with a container underneath to collect the liquid. Leave it for at least one night and one day. Two days if you can.

Here is your labne: you can spread it on bead, or spoon it on salads or hot food or nachos, but what I like best is to make little labne balls. Oil your hands with olive oil and shape small balls (about the size of a walnut). Add some more olive oil, salt and herbs or spices, like cumin seeds, coriander seeds, chili flakes, garlic, bay leaves, pepper, smoked salt, or anything that takes your fancy! I also like to roll them in dukka! If you fill a jar with olive oil to completely cover you labne balls, and add a few peeled garlic cloves, it will last several weeks.

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Yogurt Cheesecake

I am entering this recipe for the first edition of the event Sweet New Zealand

a monthly blogging event for NZ bloggers.

You can find the rules here, and this month of August 2011 I am hosting it.

We had a guest coming for afternoon tea so I quickly whipped up a cake with what I had in the house, and it turned out really nice. This is very easy: whip 2 eggs with 3 tbsp of sugar, then add 6 heaps tbsp of thick organic yogurt (I used full fat Cyclops green top, the full fat). 

For the base I used a sheet of frozen sweet short crust pastry, and added some strawberry jam.

Pour the yogurt mixture on top and bake at 160°C for about 30 minutes, or until the top starts to brown on the edges. Remove from the oven and do not touch for a while: it will be very soft! Then refrigerate for a few hours.

Because I lined the baking dish with baking paper it was easy to lift the cake out and place it on a plate. Sprinkle with icing sugar, if you like.

I admit it, I got a few American cherry (out of season), not something I would do normally, but seeing cherries everywhere in the blog world, I could not resist: I just got a handful, and used them to decorate the cake.

It was light and tasty, and actually I preferred it to cheesecakes made with cream cheese.

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Making Cheese at Home

Slow Food Waitakere organized a wonderful class to learn to make cheese (and more dairy delights) at home. The tutor was Natalie Carrand and the class was held at her family farm near Helensville. This means that you can use the milk straight from the cows! Raw milk is amazing, but it is still almost illegal in New Zealand. You can only buy it directly from some farmers, and no more that 5 litres each time. Natalie was surprised to hear the in Italy, where you can even buy from automatic distributors, people go home and then boil it... to death! I seen it, and I can understand my grandmother doing it all those years ago, and even my mother a few decades ago (hygiene standards where different then, and people only defense was pasteurization) but to boil raw milk now is to take away all those properties and vitamins that make it special. Well stored raw milk doesn't need to be boiled and I don't anyone who has died or got sick from well stored milk. And if it isn't well stored, milked hygienically or doesn't come from a healthy cow ... well, it should not be drunk in the first place! Anyway, enough about milk and lets talk cheese!

Natalie at work

The class run from 10am to 5pm, and we covered so many cheeses that it would take to long to list the all! But also yogurt, different types of yogurt in fact, and how to make them (and eat them!).

The first cheese we made was mascarpone, it has a process similar to panir, the cheese that I really wanted to learn to make on that day (I tried a few times but it was never too 'compact'. I am sure that next time I will make a great panir... I'll keep you posted!).

Making mascarpone and panir

One of the most popular cheese in the class was slipcote, possibly because it is so easy to make and can be flavoured with herbs and spices... or because it really suits Kiwis' taste!

Putting the slipcote curds into the moulds

Fresh slipcote with different herbs

Now, did I already mention that we were on the farm? I am sure I did, this was the best part for me, and in Natalie's farm you can buy raw milk, and even rent the kitchen to make cheese and butter... ah, the butter!!!!

Only in the Italian Alps I tasted butter like this! And in New Zealand cows eat green grass all year round, so the cream is really creamy and the butter really yellow. I will definitely post some more about making your own butter at home... when I get the time!

Making butter

The cheeses that took the longest to make on the day were Halloumi (with ricotta) and Feta.

To see how Halloumi and ricotta can be made at home you can click here (btw, this post had 1,345 visits since June 2010!), and for feta the process is similar, but you need to add cheese starter to the milk before adding the rennet (Natalie sells all these things, including vegetarian rennet, and utensils), and then you don't need to boil the feta pieces in the end, like for Halloumi.

Heating the milk

Adding the rennet (if making feta you need to add the starter too)

Cutting the curd

Students at work

The curds

Up to here Feta and Halloumi are almost the same... but feta stays in the box longer!

Making ricotta

Cooking the Halloumi

Salting the Halloumi

Photos by Alessandra Zecchini ©

If you live in the Auckland Area and like to do a class with Natalie her number is 027 2757 212.

If you like to lear more about Slow Food Waitakere please click here.