Recipe

Butter & Fresh cheese

Date 10 Sep 14
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Posted by Food Studio
Tags
After a long, hot summer, the woods are changing and preparing for autumn. The change can be felt in the air, which is now filled with the smells of berries, herbs and fungus. It is the time just before harvest, and the time when the cattle come back from summer dairy. It is the warmest month of the year, when the fish seek to the deepest part of the lakes to cool off. The dense forest is moist, hot and mystically dark – intensively yielding its last produce before the inset of autumn.

Because of the warm weather all summer, the forest were full of blueberries and raspberries in the beginning of August. It didn’t take much time to pick enough for snacking, dinner and dessert. For this occasion, we also got 20 litres of delicious, organic and raw milk from Bygdøy Royal Estate and had a milk workshop with Kristian Krohg-Sørensen. We created a menu that combined berries and milk products, and was prepared by all the guests themselves. It is amazing how many different textures and flavours milk can turn out to, and we tried to use as much as possible; both the butter, cream and cheese as well as all the fluids such as skimmed milk, butter milk and whey.

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Sour Cream

  • 4 l milk will produce appr. 250ml of cream

Pour fresh raw or pasteurised milk in a bowl, leaving it overnight in a cold place. The cream is lighter than milk and will rise to the surface. The next day, skim the layer of cream off the top of the milk with a large spoon or cup. You can store both the cream and milk in sterilised glass bottles in the fridge. To make sour cream, simply let the cream sour naturally at room temperature for two or three days.

Oatmeal with skimmed milk and blueberries

  • Use one part oats for two parts skimmed milk
  • Salt
  • Cinnamon
  • Honey

When the you sepeate the cream from milk, you end up with skimmed milk and this perfect for making oatmeal. Simply bring the skimmed milk to a boil and add the oatmeal, stirring until it begins to thicken. Reduce the heat to low and simmer until thickened. Serve with honey, cinnamon and fresh forest berries.

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Butter

  • 2,5 l cream (will produce appr. 1 l buttermilk and 1 kg butter)
  • 2 tsp salt

Making butter at home is very easy and needs no special equipment. Simply whisk the cream into a cold sterilised mixing bowl. Using a whisk or shaker, the cream will be softly whipped first, then stiffly whipped. This process is called churning, which means that all the fat lumps together and separats from the lactose. You churn away for several minutes – until, as if by magic, little yellow grains appear in the sour cream. Turn the mixture into a sieve and drain well, and end with a couple of good kneads in very cold water to get all of the buttermilk out. This is important as the buttermilk could go sour and the butter will go off quickly. Repeat until the water runs clear. Butter stores in the fridge for two or three weeks.

Buttermilk pancakes with sour cream, blueberries and bacon

  • 1 l buttermilk
  • 200 g flour
  • 2 large eggs, slightly beaten
  • 1,5 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 3 tsp butter
  • 250 g bacon

Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and sugar in a medium bowl. Add eggs, buttermilk, and butter, whisk to combine. Batter should have small to medium lumps. Pour the pancake batter in a pan over medium heat, and flip when has bubbles on top and is slightly dry around the edges. Meanwhile, bake bacon in butter. Serve the pancakes warm with freshly picked blueberries, sour cream and bacon.

Koldskål

  • 1 l buttermilk
  • 6 egg yolks
  • 120 g sugar
You wisp the yolks and sugar to a thick white consistency, and wisp in the buttermilk. You can add any sort of flavour you like to the koldskål (buttermilk soup) base. Just blend it with whatever kind of berries, lime zest, vanilla or whatnot you like. Keep refrigerated in a closed container, and it will keep for at least a week.

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Fresh cheese

We also made cottage cheese, a simple form of cheese where rennet is added to the milk and heated up to 30-35 degrees and then set for an hour’s time to make it coagulate. This can be done with skimmed milk, but a sour culture should be added before the heating and rennet. When coagulated, the milk should have a pudding-like consistency, enabling you to cut it in dices with a knife. When the dices are cut, you will see that a separation has taken place: The acidity of the rennet has caused the milk proteins to form thick masses, curds – floating about in a yellowish liquid known as whey. To make cottage cheese, we only need the curds: drain as much of the whey off them as possible, add fresh cream and sugar or salt – and you’ll have a brilliant foundation for a sweet or savoury meal.

Fresh cheese with forest berries and honeybaked oats

  • 250 g fresh cheese
  • 2.5 dl oatmeal
  • 3 tablespoons butter
  • 2 tablespoons honey

Melt butter, then add honey and mix until fully combined. Add oatmeal and fry gently on low heat, until golden. Allow to cool. Whip the cheese slightly with cream and add fresh berries and the honeybaked oats.

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Photographs by Svein G. Kjøde